chinese student getting paid to find porn on internet
Porn pays as student surfs sites
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
A college student who said his studies suffered after he discovered internet porn has been awarded 10,000 yuan (HK$11,358) for helping the government crack down on sexual content online.
The unidentified student at an unnamed college in northern Shanxi province reported 32 websites that contained pornography, winning a nationwide contest that has encouraged web-surfers to hunt down porn sites, state media said.
"In the past, when I was in middle school, I used to get grades that were good enough to enter a really good university," the Beijing News quoted the young man as saying.
"It is because of the influence of pornography on the internet that I was only able to get into junior college," he said.
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The nation maintains strict censorship of the internet to curb what the government deems unhealthy content including porn and violence - a system known as the "Great Firewall of China."
Officials have offered rewards to internet users who report pornographic websites.
In the first month of the effort, nearly 62,000 websites were reported - an indication that a hefty number of web users were on the lookout for porn.
The winning student's porn- spotting ability also won him monetary awards from local internet censors in the cities of Beijing and Tianjin, as well as Hebei and Hainan provinces.
More than 5,000 people were arrested in a crackdown on internet pornography last year, officials said.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
