Top officials and representatives from major Chinese Web portals met yesterday in Beijing to assess progress in the government’s Internet clean-up campaign, launched in March 2006 and marked by such slogans as the “development of a civilized Internet” and the “building of harmonious culture”.
A number of top media officials were present at the meeting, including Cai Mingzhao (蔡名照), a deputy director at the State Council Information Office and Hu Qiheng (胡启恒), a key figure behind China’s proposed real-name registration system for the Web, as well as representatives from People.com, Xinhuanet, Sina.com, Sohu.com and other major Chinese Web portals.
According to a Xinhua News Agency report on the meeting, representatives reached consensus opinion that the Internet clean-up campaign had “achieved good results, but there were still a number of unharmonious elements on the Internet”.
A joint proposal issued last April by major Web portals operating in China called on Websites to operate with the goal of creating a “healthy and civilized online culture”. The campaign sought to target indecent, violent and fraudulent online content by calling for rigorous self-censorship, standardizing of content production, and strengthening professional ethics among Web employees.
The campaign was closely linked with Hu Jintao’s “Socialist View of Honor and Shame”, a project of moral rectification in Chinese society.
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 30, 2006, 11:26am]