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Internet management in line with world norms
By Li Hong (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-03-01 05:43
SANYA: The meteoric growth of China's Internet has great potential for
development and will promote a freer flow of information, major website
executives and experts attending a seminar in South China's Hainan Province said
Monday.
China, the world's second largest Internet market after the United States,
has 111 million Internet users. The number of netizens is expected to jump by at
least 15 per cent annually before 2010.
"This means big business and enormous opportunities," said Wang Yan, chief
executive officer of sina.com, a top Chinese portal listed on the New York
Nasdaq stock exchange.
People hooked to the Internet now account for a mere 8.4 per cent of China's
total population. Web-based business is still on the rise, according to the more
than 70 executives and Internet researchers who attended the annual meeting of
the Internet Information Service Commission of the Internet Society of China.
"Among the countries whose per-capita yearly GDP is less than US$2,000, China
has witnessed the fastest growth of Internet sector, and the boom reflects
China's effective yet market-friendly regulation," Wang said. Up to 20 Chinese
firms have been listed abroad, mainly in the United States, with a gross market
value exceeding US$10 billion.
Wang said that this success partly testifies to the authorities' guiding and
overseeing the sector, and he believes there may exist a misunderstanding among
some foreigner critics of China's Internet system.
Web executives and sector experts at the seminar said that keeping out
"illegal and harmful" information from the Internet is a common practice
worldwide.
"China's overseeing Internet content is in tandem with world norms. Many big
websites in the world have explicit written rules on deleting or editing
netizens' messages that they deem abusive, defamatory, offensive, obscene, or in
violation of a specific law," said Professor Ming Dahong, of the Journalism
Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Participants of the seminar echoed Professor Ming's views.
He Hongzhen, corporate affairs manager of the Nasdaq-listed Chinese top
search engine baidu.com, said that it is responsibility for all Chinese Internet
companies to strive for a healthy, orderly, and well-regulated Internet
environment. He deemed that China's Internet management mode of "government
regulation hand in hand with sector self-discipline" is effective and beneficial
to the long-term net growth in China.
It remains an arduous task for the Internet sites to keep a sober mind in
constantly ferreting out "illegal and harmful" information, typically obscene
and pornographic content that poisons the young and vulnerable, particularly
children.
According to a recent survey, young people under the age of 18 consist of 60
per cent of China's netizens.
Since its launch in June 2004, the China Internet Illegal Information
Reporting Centre has received more than 240,000 tips from the public complaining
of illicit or irregular Internet-related content and acts. Of the total reports,
68.2 per cent are porn-related, and 8.2 per cent concerns Web gambling and
fraudulence.
Experts said the reporting centre is identical to the functioning of the
Internet Watch Foundation of the United Kingdom. China will soon join a
17-member world Internet overseeing federation, headquartered in Ireland, a
source revealed.
"As a matter of fact, the unprecedented rapid growth of Internet has
activated the democratic process of China's society, and made the country better
informed and connected with the world community," said Huang Chengqing,
secretary-general of the Internet Society of China.
(China Daily 03/01/2006 page2)
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