Chinese Initiative Against Cybercrime Hailed A Success

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated Sep 14, 2018

Ministry of Public Security says 33,000 arrested and 34,000 websites taken down during first six months of campaign

Chinese media reports over the weekend quote Ministry of Public Security statistics just released that report the arrest of 33,000 people and the shuttering of 34,000 websites during the first six months of a special enforcement action which began in February titled “Cyberspace Management 2018.”

In the six months since its inception, the public security authorities dealt with more than 92,000 administrative cases and shut down or suspended over 34,000 websites, whilst another 1,000 sites, including Baidu, Sino Weibo and Youku were slapped with administrative penalties.

Over 10,400 enterprises were subjected to “rectification’ in accordance with the law.

The Ministry says that cyberspace monitoring and inspections have been ramped up as part of the initiative, embracing social media as well, where 1.56 messages were ordered expunged, 50,000 illegal internet accounts closed and over 204 million illegal websites “filtered”.

The authorities supervised and regulated 43 website columns including Baidu Music, Sino Weibo and Sogou Pics, which had allegedly spread illegal information such as that on guns, bank cards, invoices and online prostitutes, and 119 Internet Data Centers (IDC) including 21vianet.com, Dr.Peng Broadband, China Telecom Hangzhou and China Unicom Zhengzhou were monitored.

More than 320,000 online shops and 140,000 illegal accounts including communication codes and payment accounts were shut down. Over 1,000 illegal anchor accounts and about 670,000 illegal live studios were also closed.

Similarly, about 54,000 applications spreading obscenity and violence were banned.

Online gambling, pornography and fraud received particular attention, the Ministry revealed; although the statistics were not broken down by activity.

Overall, 7,000 suspects were arrested, among which over 300 were industry insiders of telecommunication service providers, internet enterprises and banks and over 1,200 were hackers. 250 gambling rings were broken up, with the Ministry giving one example of a ring in Guangdong Province where 34 individuals were arrested , sixty computers seized and illicit cash totalling RMB 50 million (US$7.3 million) frozen.

In a further example the Ministry pointed to the destruction of 29 illegal gambling gangs, the shuttering of 79 gambling websites and the arrest of 462 people. The criminal enterprise used social networks such as QQ and WeChat to promote gambling platforms, and generated around RMB260 million (US$37.9 million) in revenues, which were frozen by the authorities.

---