Sina Corporation, owner of one of China’s most visited websites, is sorry. Very sorry. So sorry, in fact, that it has apologized not once but twice to its readers and the national antipornography office, which last week found that lewd material had made its way onto the Sina site.
The National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications said last Thursday that it had found 20 articles and four videos posted on the Sina.com site, “confirmed to have contained lewd and pornographic content,” according to Xinhua, the state news agency. The government said it was revoking two of Sina’s Internet publication licenses, and would also fine the Shanghai-based company.
Sina apologized that day, and again on Sunday.
“As one of the influential websites in China, Sina has failed to shoulder its due responsibility and we feel sorry for that,” the company said in a statement sent to
Xinhua.
To anyone who frequently visits Chinese news websites, the idea that Sina is being singled out by the authorities for posting pornography may sound odd. Doing news searches on Chinese websites is not for the prudish. Until the recent pornography crackdown, websites were full of advertisements featuring scantily clad women in various suggestive and lewd poses, often appearing to be engaged in sex acts with men.
Even publications affiliated with the ruling Communist Party have a low bar for publicizing sexualized material that would cause outrage in the United States and elsewhere. For example, on April 4, the website of People’s Daily, the party’s official newspaper, featured an article entitled “Top 10 celebs with the most beautiful breasts in Taiwan.”
“Taiwan is known for its gorgeous women,” the People’s Daily article said. “Some of them have innocent and angelic faces, others stand out for their mature personalities. However, almost all of them have sexy figures.”
In Sina’s case, the government watchdog said the company had links to publications that sold what it said was pornographic material, including a book called “The Village Woman’s Dream Lover: Village Doctor Wanted.”
These kind of publications “endanger public morality, have a wide impact and seriously endanger the health of young people,’’ Xinhua said on Thursday.
The incident already has had a serious impact on Sina’s share price. Shares of the Nasdaq-listed company fell more than 3 percent on Thursday in New York, and another 6.76 percent on Friday, after the announcement. Weibo, the social media arm of Sina, which had its initial public offering earlier this month, fell 4.5 percent on Thursday and more than 6 percent on Friday.
Cathy Peng, a Beijing-based investor relations manager for Sina, did not respond to requests by email and telephone for comment on the government sanctions.
The government may face an uphill fight trying to rid the Chinese Internet of smut. On Monday, the link to the original Sina apology had a link to an online retailer. One of the ads, since removed, featured what appeared to be a bare-breasted woman.