Chinese Authorities Shut Down 44,000 Porn Sites In 2007

China shut down 44,000 Web sites and homepages and arrested 868 people last year in a campaign against Internet porn which will continue until the end of this year's Beijing Olympics.

China launched a crackdown on online pornography and "unhealthy" Web content after Chinese President Hu Jintao said the country's sprawling Internet posed a threat to social stability.

Rights groups have said the campaign has been used as a thinly veiled pretext to crack down on dissent and round up online dissidents ahead of the Olympics.

Authorities had also investigated 524 criminal cases involving online porn and "penalized" another 1,911 people.

Some 440,000 "pornographic messages" had also been deleted, the agency said.

China has attempted to stifle online criticism of the ruling Communist Party and discussion related to sensitive topics such as Tibet and Taiwan by ordering Web sites to register with authorities.

Authorities registered 199,000 Web sites last year, but refused 14,000 for failing to get official registration or to apply for official approval.

China employs tens of thousands of human Internet censors and a vast network of filters to control online information.

The anti-pornography campaign would continue until September, "after the Beijing Olympic Games end".

China last month said it would crack down on video-sharing Web sites, and allow only state-controlled sites to post video content online in new restrictions effective from January 31.

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Vietnamese Authorities Approves Pornographic Pictures For Exhibition

Vietnamese authorities have given permission for the first ever exhibition of nude photographs in the conservative communist country, state media and the photographer said this week.

Photographer Thai Phien said he got the go ahead to exhibit 48 of his nude photos in Hanoi between November 24 and 27.

"I was the first photographer in Vietnam that received a licence to open this type of exhibition," he said.

Phien said he had to submit his photos to the censors, adding "it's lucky that the authorities accepted them."

He also expects a collection of about 70 of his nude pictures will be published prior to the exhibition.

The Thanh Nien newspaper said "Nude photos have gone on display in Vietnam before, but never has an exhibition consisted solely of nudes."

The daily said censors in the southern commercial centre of Ho Chi Minh City earlier this year refused to allow a similar exhibition by a female artist because "they were not in accordance with Vietnamese customs and morality".

Vietnam Photographers' Association head Chu Chi Thanh was quoted as saying authorities were always cautious because it was difficult to distinguish the boundary between erotic and artistic photos.

Phien agreed it was hard to draw a line.

"The boundaries between pornographic and artistic photos are very slim. It depends a lot on personal impression," he said.

Vietnam, whose 84 million people are mostly Buddhist, is a socially conservative country.

Films, books, photos and artistic works are often censored and those on sensitive topics such as sex are usually banned.

Earlier this month an amateur sex video featuring the popular teenage host of a TV morality show sparked public outrage, with four students arrested for allegedly posting the clip on the Internet.

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Serbian Men Make Porn For 50 Euros ($68) Per Film

When it comes to porn movies, the situation in Serbia is progressively getting worse. Times were better in the days of Milosevic testifies the famous screenwriter Mladen Djordjevic.

While making the documentary Made in Serbia, which was screened at this year's Zagreb Film Festival (ZFF), he once again delved into the world of the social conditions in which Serbian porn actors live and work. By using the pornography metaphor, he showed a realistic picture of a society without hope or goal and the struggle to endure in raw survival conditions.

"People who decide to act in porn movies [in Serbia] are people on the verge of social existence, they live from one day to the next. Still, they have nothing to be ashamed of," Djordjevic adds.

The young director has depicted the fates of the several most attractive Serbian porn stars. They live in misery and poverty and often make movies precisely because they can earn the most money in this way. In Serbia, where the average salary amounts to 150 euros [per month], the money that they get from a single movie is far more lucrative to actors than, for instance, farming an agricultural tract of land.

The 50 euro Serbian Stud

No one wants to watch domestic movies anymore - Djordjevic reveals to us.

"Those are exceptionally low quality movies, even though the actors try. Anyone would sooner rent a foreign porn movie and even the numbers here are - laughable. Men get 50 euros for the whole film and women get 100. Djordjevic is worried by the fact that the situation has remained unchanged for years, so Serbian porn actors are looking for a break abroad, for instance - in Budapest," he says.

In Hungary, for example, the average price per scene is 500 euros + 20 percent for the agency that books the model. Therefore, as the people we have talked to tell us, a producer will pay as much as 600 euros for one good girl if she is an established name. In Serbia, the price depends on the appearance, the series of scenes that are filmed, and their variety (several diverse scenes - bigger price) and, naturally, on the way the scenes are acted.

Low Quality Productions

We looked to the master of the Serbian porn scene for an answer to this question. Slobodan Stankovic is the self-declared emperor of the Serbian porn industry, the owner of the magazine Striptiz and probably the most influential porn producer.

"It is hard to have a good producer who is ready to invest money and not to have good models. It is easy when I have both one and the other, but those are really rare situations," says Stankovic, who collaborated with Djordjevic on the documentary feature Made in Serbia and presented himself to the audience in an autobiographical role in the film.

It seems that, after the film had been made and screened at the festival, there was a difference of opinion. To clarify, Djordjevic and Stankovic are not on speaking terms today. They do, however, agree on one thing. The Serbian market is in urgent need of investments in order to recover.

Serbs more open than Croats and Slovenians?

"We produce the biggest number of movies and have the biggest number of magazines [that deal with] those themes. There seem to be several reasons at play: the first one is the citizens' mentality, I think that Serbs are more open than Croats or Slovenians. The second reason is definitely the influence of religion, since Catholics live 'more virtuously.' The third is that Serbia has been though a difficult political period, so sex served as an outlet for the problems to people. As the final reason behind the expansion of porn in Serbia, Stankovic mentions the 'general beauty of citizens.' Owing to the good looking guys and girls on the streets of Belgrade, it is not difficult to gather a crew and make a good project," Stankovic points out.

Of course Stankovic's view of his Muslim Croat neighbors is a bit shortsighted when it comes to piety, faith and acceptance of adult material

Croats in the porn business

The Belgrade porn company Balkan Exotic, with Slobodan Stankovic at the helm, regrets that there are not more Croats in the business.

"Ira Tigerman once tried to do something in the area, but she asked us how we find so many models," Stankovic confides.

Serbs are not bashful and they are in dire need of money, so they prefer to make movies. Since the domestic film Kozjak, which has been banned and caused a huge stir on the Croatian porn circuit, nothing has happened that had any major differance in the industry. "It is a pity because Croats are certainly a good looking people too, we do not have any doubts that the actors would be top notch," concludes Stankovic.

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Porn Industry Booming Worldwide With US And China Leading

Geoffrey Fattah

Every 39 minutes a new pornographic video is being produced in the United States. Every second, 28,258 Internet users view pornography worldwide and 372 Internet users are typing search keywords looking for adult-oriented material.

These are just a few of the statistics featured in a study conducted by Ogden-based TopTen Reviews. The company claims revenues for the world pornography industry hit an estimated $97 billion in 2006, overshadowing the revenues of the top technology companies - the likes of Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and Apple - combined.

"The pornography industry is a very large industry, and it's growing," said TopTen Reviews CEO Jerry Ropelato.

The study shows two of the world's largest economic powerhouses, the United States and China, dominate the markets in adult-oriented Internet sites and adult products, respectively.

The report shows China saw estimated revenues of $27.4 billion in 2006, mainly for being one of the largest producers of sex toys, Ropelato said. The other top-ranking countries for adult-related revenues were South Korea and Japan.

The study shows two of the world's largest economic powerhouses, the United States and China, dominate the markets in adult-oriented Internet sites and adult products, respectively.

The report shows China saw estimated revenues of $27.4 billion in 2006, mainly for being one of the largest producers of sex toys, Ropelato said. The other top-ranking countries for adult-related revenues were South Korea and Japan.

The United States hosted a whopping 244 million adult Web pages, compared to second place Germany, which hosted only 10 million pages. About 12 percent of all total Web sites on the Internet are considered pornographic in nature.

TopTen Reviews compiled statistics from more than 10,000 sources, including the pornography industry, media reports and anti-pornography organizations. The report paints a picture of an exploding industry.

Other findings show most viewers of Internet pornography tend to be those with higher incomes. The report states 35 percent of Net porn viewers earn $75,000 a year or more. The next highest, 26 percent, are those who earn $50,000 to $75,000 a year.

Ropelato said the main reason appears to be the ability of people with higher incomes to afford computers, and those with higher incomes can also afford broadband Internet service.

The exposure of minors to pornography on the Internet was also assessed. According to the report, 80 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds have had multiple exposures to hard-core pornography, mostly while doing research for homework. Ropelato said it appears most of these incidents came as the result of a mistyped Web address, pop-up ads or other incidental exposures.

"I feel that people are being exposed to hard-core porn," said Chris Ahearn, section chief for the Internet Crimes Against Children task force at the Utah Attorney General's Office. Ahearn said he has looked at the TopTen Reviews report, and while he cannot confirm any of its findings, he felt there is a likelihood that many of the statistics could be accurate, based on other studies he has seen.

Ahearn said parents should have some kind of Internet filter software installed on their computers as a first step. Parents should also supervise younger Web surfers and talk to older children about Internet safety.

TopTen Reviews has also reviewed and ranked a list of the best parental software in its opinion. The ranking and the report can be viewed at www.internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com.

"I think it's a huge danger for kids, and I think parents need to be aware of it, and if they don't have an Internet filter on their computer they should get one," Ropelato said, adding he agrees with law enforcement that parents need to sit down with their children and talk about Internet safety.

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