China's web portals step up content 'policing'

[engine]

China's top Web portals, including Sina and Tom Online, have agreed to rid their sites of "unhealthy" content, amid a broader Beijing campaign to clean up the Internet.

Other major players in the self-policing drive include Sohu.com, NetEase.com, Baidu.com and Yahoo's China Web portal, according to the text of a pledge by 14 companies posted on Sina's Web site.

U.S. search giant Google, which has come under fire for agreeing to self-censor its China Web site to filter out politically sensitive issues, was not on the list, and nor was Microsoft's MSN Network, which also operates in China.

China's web portals step up content 'policing' [news.com.com]

[bill]

Interesting. This mentality of self censorship is described quite well in article Google in China: The Big Disconnect [webmasterworld.com] article I linked to last week. They really have created a self-perpetuating system of checks and balances in terms of self-censorship. We know that not everyone agrees with the politics behind such a system (let's not go there please), but it's impressive that they can keep up this momentum and put a positive spin on it at the same time.

[redstorm]

Hi, there:
in Mainland, when we speak of "unhealthy" content, we refer to those adult and pornographic information. Even in some portal websites, we can get this kind of information easily; it is a harm to people especially to the youth.
Some portal websites use adult and pornographic information to increase their pageviews, i don't like them.

i think yahoo, msn and other international are more responsible to the public than the local websites, that's why they are not on the list. But i am sure they will be on the list next time because they are showing "unself-policying" someway.
I hope the campaign will really clean our internet market and make it healthy growth.