China on Monday asked video sites to clean up cartoons recently uploaded online that use cartoon characters in improper and violent situations.
The National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications(NOAPIP) said in a statement on Monday that it had launched a nationwide campaign to crack down on the harmful videos." We'll keep an eye out for whether those websites carry out self-examination and clean up the videos. Any company that fails to take on its responsibility and continues spreading the videos will be severely punished, "it said.
The recent action was sparked by the translation of an English article, which was published on social network Reddit and wentviralon Chinese social media. The article describes the author's experience working in an animation firm that makes cartoon copies of popular children's characters, typically Spiderman, Elsa and Sponge Bob into scenes of violence or something improper to attract children to watch. The videos were shared on You Tube. Foreign media has reported that You Tube started closing the related accounts and declared that it had deleted more than 150, 000 videos. Whether true or false. The article made people more concerned about harmful videos on the Internet, especially those for children.
The capital also launched a campaign against online games that distort Chinese history, discredit heroes, violate the national religious policy, or promote violence or crime, to develop a healthy network environment for children.
