By suspending the issuance of new licenses and ordering local officials to crack down on unregistered or loosely managed operations, government leaders are reacting to concerns over unfettered and anonymous access to the Web.
“The focus [of the campaign] is on putting an end to the transmission of harmful information -- mainly that which is pornographic or obscene -- and preventing harm to young people’s physical and mental health,” an administration official told China News Service.
In a formal notice this week from China’s Administration for Industry and Commerce, government leaders said that using the Internet in many cases spreads “harmful cultural information and seriously hurts the mental and physical health of young people.”
The officials also worry that students spend too much time at Internet cafes playing video games.
“In some places regulation is lax, enforcement weak, and the illegal entry of minors to Internet cafes and other service areas has been often forbidden, but never stopped,” the Administration for Industry and Commerce report said.
Beijing started barring minors from Internet cafes two years ago, forbidding their operation within 600 feet of schools or in residential compounds, and requiring users to prove their identity and sign a register. The regulations also banned the distribution, downloading, or reading of government secrets, harmful libel or content that is “harmful to national unity.”
But the regulations have been widely ignored after the inspection of 45,000 Internet cafes during a few months in 2002.
Up to 15 percent of children in large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou use Internet cafes, according to a study last year. The same study said that only 30 percent of the population has access to a computer at home.
The government, which also threatened to punish efforts to “clandestinely set up an online service” by disguising it as a computer school, said the proposed “clean up” campaign will last until August.