Chinese authorities have shut down more than 60,000 pornographic websites since launching a crackdown in December 2009, the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications said Tuesday.

The office also said some 1.785 million websites have been checked since the launch of the campaign.

Some 2,197 cases of dissemination of online pornography have been dealt with during the crackdown.

The office said it has received more than 160,000 porn-related tip-offs from the general public and paid out about 526,000 yuan to 516 informers.

The office said the "spread of pornography has been effectively curbed and the Internet further purified."

During the porn crackdown, different departments found ways to stop the spread of?the porn.

The China Mobile Yunnan Branch invited more than 20 mothers of teenagers to help monitor and find porn websites.

China has the world's largest online population, with more than 420 million netizens. Users of Internet-capable mobile phones had reached 277 million and accounted for 65.9 percent of all Internet users in China at the end of June.