Several Chinese internet companies and websites that hosts “offending anime material”, such as Blood-C, Highschool of the Dead and Terror in Resonance, will be “punished”, the Chinese Ministry of Culture announced on Tuesday.
These series have been blacklisted because they include “scenes of violence, pornography, terrorism and crimes against public morality”, according to the Ministry of Culture.
Baidu Inc’s iQiyi, Sohu.com Inc., Tencent, Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp Beijing and Youku Tudou are some of the companies and websites affected. Even though the mentioned websites are only hosting such content, the Ministry of Culture stated that they will be punished regardless according to the law since said material, which is mainly Japanese animation, is said to cause and promote juvenile delinquency.
Starting from April 1st, video hosting websites will be asked to seek approval to stream foreign media, and if they fail to do so, they will be prohibited from streaming any type of media.
Some experts say that China’s attempts to control and censor the Internet has evolved and they are now cyber-attacking overseas websites considered as threat by the Chinese government. Websites such as GitHub, that hosts copies of websites banned in China, a Mandarin language translation of the New York Times and Greatfire.org, which would help Chinese users to bypass government censorship.
