my Computer Quest: Pornography

Showing posts with label Pornography. Show all posts

Showing posts with label Pornography. Show all posts

26 June, 2009

Not just porn, no to 'health' sites too

Image by El Tipo Gráfico via Flickr

05:55 AM Jun 26, 2009

BEIJING - China's crackdown on Internet pornography will be extended to health-related sex information, according to new regulations that tighten supervision of such content.

The authorities will monitor such information to prevent obscene content from slipping through and stop pornographic operations posing as health websites, said the rules posted on Wednesday on the health ministry website.

"It is strictly forbidden to disseminate vulgar content in the name of spreading sexual knowledge," it said.

The new regulation comes as China steps up a campaign to wipe out Internet pornography. The government has told computer makers that all personal computers sold from July 1 must be shipped with anti-pornography software.

United States trade officials sent a letter to their Chinese counterparts on Wednesday urging them to revoke an order that requires a controversial Internet filtering software to be installed on computers.

The new regulation applied to websites that bill themselves as health-based, including those run by research institutes and private companies. Violators face fines of 3,000-10,000 yuan ($640-$2,130) in the case of non-commercial websites and more than 10,000 yuan for commercial sites.

However, the paper said authorities should make sure access to legitimate sex information is not cut off, calling it a key sexual education tool.

Yesterday China accused Google of spreading pornography after Chinese users were unable to connect to the search giant's site. "We have found that the English version of google.com has spread lots of pornographic, lewd and vulgar content, which is in serious violation of Chinese laws and regulations," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang.

He said the authorities summoned Google representatives and told them to "remove the material immediately". He did not respond to questions on whether the government was responsible for the outage. Agencies

From TODAY, World – Friday, 26-Jun-2009; see the source article here.

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19 June, 2009

Google to step up anti-porn efforts in China

Image by El Tipo Gráfico via Flickr

06/19/2009 04:56 PM

BEIJING — Google Inc. said Friday that it would step up efforts to stop pornography reaching users in China after a mainland watchdog found the search engine turned up a large number of links to obscene and vulgar sites.

"We have been continually working to deal with pornographic content, and material that is harmful to children, on the Web in China," a statement from the company said.

It added that it had renewed efforts to keep the Internet in China clean after noticing criticism posted Thursday to the Web site of the mainland watchdog, the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center.

The watchdog said that despite official warnings, Google was still failing to "filter pornographic contents from its search engine results according to China's relevant laws and regulations." It said tests found that the search engine provided links to a large number of lewd and vulgar pictures, videos and articles, though it gave no specific examples.

China, which has the world's largest population of Internet users at more than 298 million, also has one of the world's tightest controls over the Internet. The government bans online pornography and this year launched a nationwide crackdown that led to the closing of more than 1,900 Web sites.

Google, headquartered in Mountain View, California, has struggled to expand in China, where it says it has about 30 percent of the search market. China's homegrown Baidu search engine remains the most popular, with about 60 percent of the market. - AP

From GMANews.tv; see the source article here.

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06 June, 2009

Japanese software regulator bans rape "games"

Posted: 05 June 2009 1726 hrs

A software shop in Tokyo

TOKYO: A Japanese software industry body has decided to ban computer games in which players simulate sexual violence against females, a spokesman said.

The industry move came after a Japanese computer game maker attracted furious protests from US rights campaigners against the game "RapeLay," which lets players simulate stalking and raping young girls.

In the game players earn points for acts of sexual violence, including following girls on commuter trains, raping virgins and their mothers, and then forcing them to have abortions.

US online retailer Amazon in February took RapeLay off its websites, but the game's Yokohama-based maker Illusion brushed off the protests, saying the game was made for the domestic market and abided by laws in Japan.

The Japanese industry group the Ethics Organisation of Computer Software said it had long mulled measures to control such content which it said "deviates extremely from social norms."

The organisation will now ban all "sexual torture software" and set clear guidelines on what content should be blocked from circulating in the market, the group said in an announcement dated Thursday.

The group says it already screens almost all adult-content computer games made in Japan, and that some 90 percent of products carry its rating stickers.

The ban is a form of industry self-regulation and carries no legal weight, but it is expected to discourage most Japanese retailers from selling such games, said the spokesman.

Japan, often criticised as a major producer of child pornography, in 1999 banned the production, distribution and commercial use of sexually arousing photos, videos and other materials involving those aged under 18.

However, the law did not criminalise possession of such materials, and the ban also failed to cover child porn in animation and computer graphics, often categorised as "hentai" (pervert) content.

- AFP/vm

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

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