Porn Watchdogs in China Can Earn Up to $32,000 Each Year

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Chinese citizens at an internet cafe on June 11, 2005 in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China.

Image: Cancan Chu/Getty Images

By Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai2014-05-05 17:38:45 UTC

More than 4,000 Chinese citizens have applied to be porn watchdogs, or "sexual content appraisers," as Internet companies create new jobs to comply with a new government crackdown on Internet pornography.

The job description requires porn watchdogs to be between the ages of 20 and 35; they can be male or female, and receive compensation for up to $32,000 a year, Want China Times reported. These new jobs have been created by Chinese Internet companies like Baidu, Tencent and Kingsoft in an attempt to better comply with the government's latest crackdown part of new so-called "Clean Internet Campaign 2014."

See also: Can an Android App Defeat China's Internet Censors?

The job includes evaluating pictures, videos and other kinds of content online to determine if it runs afoul of the new regulations, which outlaws not just porn but also erotic or sexually suggestive content, such as young women or even cartoons wearing sleeveless shirts, shorts or bikinis.

But the job isn't necessarily as fun as it might sound.

"When I do the appraisal, all I am thinking about is whether the content meets the standards for sexual content, or whether the content in the video or disc is publicly advertising sex, or showing sex," said Liu Chunqi, a police officer who works as a porn watchdog in the city of Harbin, according to The Hollywood Reporter . "Some people think it’s just watching porn, but it’s not. Sometimes it makes me throw up."

The Chinese government has already shut down numerous websites as part of the the anti-porn campaign, which experts believe is just another attempt from the Chinese government to control the Internet.

Websites or portals can also receive large fines if they allow pornographic content within their services.

Last week, Chinese authorities fined the Internet giant Sina, which owns Sina Weibo (a.k.a. "China's Twitter"), for hosting "unhealthy and indecent content." The company received a fine of 5.1 million yuan ($815,038), according to Reuters.

The government also stripped Sina of some online publication licenses, which experts feared could happen under the new anti-porn regulations.

Michael Carbone, the manager of tech policy and programs at human rights organization Access, and an expert in China's Internet freedom issues, previously told Mashable that China's new crackdown on porn would establish "easy political justifications to take down websites and revoke licenses to operate."

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Topics: china, internet censorship, porn, US & World, World