Chief executives from China's overseas-listed Internet firms and
sector experts met at a seminar in Hainan last Saturday to discuss
issues concerning the smooth and healthy growth of the country's
Internet business.
Experts and sector representatives expressed the hope that the
government would improve the legal framework to better guide its
progressive growth. They said that some self-governing rules by the
Internet firms on forbidding porn and illegal information have been
well-received by the public.
Li Jiaming, director general of China Reporting Center of
Illegal and Unhealthy Information, said his department has received
more than 240,000 reports from the public complaining about illicit
or irregular Internet-related content and acts, since its launch in
June 2004. Of those complaints, 127,010 or 68.2 percent reported in
2005 are porn related. The reporting center also received thousands
of letters, the majority of which were from parents, teachers and
students. People from all walks of life expressed their support for
the work of the reporting center.
Li said many people expressed in their letters extreme concerns
about the pernicious effects of porn and illegal websites on the
young and called for harsh punitive actions against offenders. Some
parents are so gravely worried about the influence of such websites
on their children that many resorted to writing "Please help save
our children!"in their letters.
He cited one letter from a mother in Taiyuan City,
Shanxi Province, which read: "I strongly support the
government's regulating of the Internet. If the government didn't
deal with it, the Internet would be flooded with harmful
information and no parent would want that."
In their letters, many people expressed their indignation that
some websites work solely for profits, while ignoring their social
responsibilities. A man surnamed Zhan from Beijing's Dongcheng
District said he would not sit idle while seeing pernicious
information on the internet "ruining our young generation".
Li cautioned about the long and hard road to achieving a clean
and healthy cyberspace due to the complex nature of the Internet
business.
(China.org.cn February 28, 2006)