Monday, Jul 30, 2012    Text size: 

BEIJING — China's Ministry of Public Security has shut down adult website MM Apartment and arrested more than 2000 suspects in connection with the site, which counts 1 million-plus registered users. 

Launched in 2009, the MM Apartment website functioned as a bulletin board where users were encouraged to post pornographic content in exchange for free membership.

According to the Beijing Times (via Global Times), the site had collected more than 8 million posts at the time of the bust, most of which included hardcore videos and photos.

The Ministry's findings concluded that, despite being hosted by an undisclosed United States webserver, the operators and users of the MM Apartment website resided in China.

Among the 2148 people arrested in the sting were at least 34 male government workers from Beijing. 

The crackdown on the MM Apartment website is a major victory in China's ongoing battle against porn.

The country, which continues to egg its citizens into policing themselves, often through cash incentives, recently made it mandatory for streaming video websites to pre-screen all content deemed vulgar, violent and pornographic.