Netizens from about 40 websites have said they will not look at
or pass on the hundreds of pornographic star photos which began
circulating on the Internet during the Spring Festival and which
have been dubbed Pornogate.
"Recently some racy photos of a Hong Kong singer-actor together
with several actresses spread quickly on the Internet. They were
viewed and downloaded by many netizens; they are beyond the
acceptable limits of morality," read a declaration on the portal
website Sohu.com.
"Hereby we call on each responsible netizen to 'end Pornogate'
by deleting those photos, not downloading and not forwarding, so as
to create a healthy online environment for children," said the
declaration.
Dozens of other websites including Sina.com, Baidu.com, QQ.com,
mediachina.net posted similar declarations. On Sina alone, about
2,000 netizens supported a posting from a netizen nicknamed
Sanxia.
The Public Security Ministry launched a campaign from this
January to September to clear porn from the Internet.
The Internet News and Information Review Council in Beijing on
Monday asked China's major search website Baidu.com to make a
public apology for its delayed reaction in blocking access to the
photos.
"'Key-words searching' and 'Tieba', a picture-sharing section of
Baidu.com, became a platform to show and spread the obscene
pictures and Baidu failed to block the photos after other
Beijing-based websites had taken actions against the pictures'
spreading," said a statement issued by the council. One posting on
the Tieba section of the Baidu website had attracted more than
500,000 clicks.
The incident aroused media frenzy from the end of January
onwards, when the sex photos of Canadian-born rap singer and actor
Edison Chen and starlet Gillian Chung were allegedly stolen from a
faulty computer. They then spread rapidly on the Internet.
More celebrities were soon dragged into the scandal, including
actress Cecilia Cheung, Hollywood actress Maggie Q and former
actress Bobo Chan.
Hong Kong police made high-profile arrests of at least six
suspects.
Edison Chen apologized in a video statement on Feb. 4, followed
by Gillian Chung on Feb. 11, admitting that she had been "very
naive and very silly".
The efforts, however, didn't seem to bring an end to the
scandal.
Some people showed tolerance to the spreading the photos. "Such
photos would be spread wherever they appear in the world. They
could shoot the photos, why couldn't we spread them," said a
netizen nicknamed Little Shrimp.
But Li Yinhe, a renowned sociologist and a researcher with the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, expressed her worry. "Many
people nowadays have the hobby of prying into others' privacy. We
need to reflect on such vulgar and unhealthy interests."
China has the second largest population of internet users in the
world--210 million by the end of 2007, among whom those aged
between 18 and 24 accounted for 31.8 percent of the total and the
group from 25 to 30 made up 18.1 percent.
A survey by the Shanghai University showed that 85 percent of
the more than 100 primary school teachers polled and 73.4 percent
of the 200 parents expressed anxiety about porn and violence on the
Internet, but 56.8 percent of the teachers and 29.2 percent of the
parents felt helpless in tackling the problem.
When "too obscene, too violent" has become the first catch
phrase in the year 2008 in China, "the Pornogate scandal rings a
warning bell for the Internet supervision department to beef up
supervision," said a commentary on the southcn.com, "eliminating
the obscene pictures is just the first step, and it will take a
long time to create a healthy and harmonious online
environment."
An official with the Beijing Qingdian Wanwei Telecommunication
and Technology Co., Ltd was nabbed on Monday with three of his
underling for uploading 28 obscene pictures last year, with a click
rate of 250,000, according to a report of the Beijing Youth
Daily.
"Because of the high click rate, they are likely to face more
than ten years' jail," said the report.
The incident was also seen as a lesson for star-crazy
youngsters.
Sports column writer Dong Lu posted an article on his blog,
saying that "what fans of the stars should do is to smash their
computers and common people, the idols".
"Thanks to Edison Chen and the scandal, although some actresses
were hurt, they gave the society a valuable lesson...the fans
should wake up and live their own lives."
His view was shared by a netizen nicknamed Haikuotiankong. "We
should take this opportunity to educate our young people to see the
stars in a correct way rather than deify and worship them blindly,"
he said. "those who died in the battle against snow disaster are
our real idols."
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(Xinhua News Agency February 20, 2008)
