When you’re a totalitarian state with control over the entire Internet, and you decide to ban porn, you can actually do it. From a Times Online report:
Beijing has declared war on the wave of “unhealthy” internet content it says is engulfing the nation’s cyberspace, amid fears China’s young are being corrupted en masse by an influx of online sex and violence.
The nation’s leading news sites and internet portals have vowed to adhere to a strict programme of “self-censorship” to support the “Eight Honours and Disgraces”, a new doctrine of “socialist morality” recently laid out by Hu Jintao, the Chinese President. …
….The West’s leading internet players, – Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and eBay – have all been caught in the resulting controversy.
But the lure of China’s prospects has offset fears of negative reactions from their domestic markets. Last week, Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman and founder, hosted Mr Hu at a dinner during the politician’s visit to America.
Eric Schmidt, the Google chief executive, used the recent relaunch of the company’s brand in China to reaffirm his commitment to the territory and made it clear that Google has no intention of confronting China’s ruling Communist Party over online restrictions.
Well, they’re learning from the best, aren’t they?