After Titian’s “Venus of Urbino” was deleted from an online photo album at social networking site Douban.com, Internet users responded by asking their fellow users to dress famous nudes, including Michelangelo’s “David” sculpture and depiction of Adam on the Sistine Chapel, in order to “save” them from online censors.
Representatives from Douban.com announced shortly after the protest began that they had received permission to show the “Venus of Urbino” online in its original state.
The crackdown on Internet pornography and other “harmful material” began on Jan. 5 when the Ministry of Public Security and six other Chinese government agencies issued a list of sites, including search engine giants Google and Baidu, that had “used all kinds of ways to distribute content that is low-class, crude and even vulgar, gravely damaging mores on the Internet,” according to Cai Mingzhao, a deputy chief of the State Council Information Office.
The crackdown, originally planned to last one month, was recently extended through the Chinese New Year holiday in April, and now includes cellphones and other mobile devices.
To date, censors have blocked access to 1,911 websites and several hundred blogs, as well as detained over 40 people.
