HONG KONG – China will shut down or punish dozens of video-sharing Web sites for carrying content deemed pornographic, violent or a threat to national security under rules that tighten Internet controls, a regulator said Friday. The announcement came as Chinese Web surfers were blocked from seeing foreign sites with video about protests in Tibet. The new order did not mention the anti-government demonstrations or China’s resulting crackdown.
One of China’s most popular video-sharing sites, Tudou.com, was among those penalized, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television said. It gave no details of Tudou’s violation or penalty. Rules that took effect Jan. 31 ban Chinese sites from distributing online video that involves national secrets, hurts the reputation of China, disrupts social stability or promotes pornography. Web sites are required to delete and report such content. Communist authorities have also tightened controls on Chinese media ahead of this summer’s Beijing Olympics in hopes of stopping content that might tarnish a national prestige event. In the recent sweep, regulators ordered 25 Web sites to shut down and will punish 32 others following a two-month investigation, the administration said on its Web site. The industry has grown quickly as a source of news in a country where the government owns all newspapers and broadcasters and enforces the ruling Communist Party’s censorship guidelines. Some sites say they get 100 million visitors a day, an audience that rivals that of the biggest state television channels.

The government announced in December that all video-sharing sites had to be state-owned.

What if they hosted the Olympics and nobody came?