China wants all PCs to have anti-pornography software

CHINA wants all personal computers sold domestically to come with software that blocks access to online pornography, which it has banned, the main developer of the software has said.

The software, called “Green Dam-Youth Escort”, targets online porn by preventing computers from accessing sites with pornographic pictures or language, Zhang Chenmin, general manager of Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co, told reporters. Jinhui was compiling a database of the blocked sites.

“According to our surveys, many teenage students have become familiar with internet pornography and they commonly share the addresses of pornographic websites with one another,” Zhang said.

The software could also be used to block other websites, Zhang said. The Chinese government routinely blocks political sites, especially ones it considers socially destabilising such as sites that challenge the ruling Communist Party, promote democratic reform or advocate independence for Tibet.

Parents can also add to the list of blacklisted sites, Zhang said. “If a father doesn’t want his son to be exposed to content related to basketball or drugs, he can block all websites related to those things,” Zhang said, adding users also could unblock websites. Zhang said his company signed a 21 million yuan (€2.2m) contract with the Chinese government last May to develop the software and distribute it to personal computer-makers free of charge within one year, to be included with units meant for domestic sale.

Consumers can uninstall the software if they do not want it, Zhang said.

China, which has the world’s largest population of internet users at more than 250 million, this year launched a nationwide crackdown on internet pornography, which is banned in China. More than 1,900 websites have been shut down since the beginning of the campaign and websites including Google and Baidu, China’s most popular search engine, were criticised for linking to suspect sites.

According to the Wall Street Journal yesterday, China’s Industry and Information Technology Ministry issued a notice on May 19 to personal computer-makers that PCs to be sold in China as of July 1 must be preloaded with the software. PC makers would be also required to tell authorities how many PCs they have shipped with the software.

A separate notice on its website said all primary and secondary schools were required to install the Green Dam software on every school computer by the end of last month.

Educators “should fully realise the damage harmful online information does to the physical and mental health of primary and secondary school students”, it said.