Incentivizing neighbors to snitch on neighbors, co-workers to snitch on co-workers and family members to snitch on family members has been a hallmark of Communist Rule since the rise of Stalin. Now, the Chinese Communist Party is using these age-old techniques to root out a popular, if illegal, blemish on Chinese society: Pornography.
After sentencing a writer of erotic stories to 10 years in prison in a high-profile case, China has doubled the reward for reporting the illegal publishing of pornography to about 600,000 yuan ($86,500), according to Abacus. The regulator in charge of enforcing the policy is called “Clean up the Pornographic, Strike the Illegal”. It will also reward citizens who expose publishing of anything that “endangers ideological security, cultural security, physical and mental health of minors.”
The National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications – a government body tasked with cleaning up China’s web – last week issued New Measures for Rewarding Reporting on Eradicating Pornography and Illegal Content, which will become effective December 1.
Given that average Chinese citizens can now earn many multiples of their annual income by ferreting out pornographers, many commenters on Chinese social media websites have speculated about quitting their jobs to become full-time porn bounty hunters.
“I’m not going to work today,” wrote one potential porn-buster on Weibo. “I’ll look everywhere for materials so I can report anyone who I find disagreeable. There’s money to be made in reporting, so what am I doing working myself to death?”
Meanwhile, penalties for convicted pornographers, or even businesses and individuals who find themselves connected to the sharing of pornography, can be incredibly stiff (no pun intended).
How much danger they could be in was illustrated this week with the sentencing of Chinese erotic writer Tianyi to 10.5 years in prison over gay scenes depicted in her novel. The news sparked outrage both inside and outside of China. But she is far from the only one caught in the crackdown that began in early 2018.
In August, the 27-year-old founder of video app Hot TV was served with a 7-year prison sentence for hosting 1,579 illegal videos on the platform, 28 of which were defined as pornographic – that’s one year in prison for every four indecent videos.
Even within private online groups, sharing explicit GIFs and videos has become risky, as shown by the case of the WeChat group admin who got 6 months in prison for allowing such content. And that sentence was considered lenient.
The government is also stepping up raids on publishers, book stores and Internet cafes to try and ferret out illegal content. The upshot: Work is about to get busy for all of those porn identification officers that Chine hired a few years back.
So keep your impure thoughts to yourself.
via RSS https://ift.tt/2QgEARv Tyler Durden