Thu Apr 13, 2:48 PM ET
BEIJING - China's official Internet industry association is calling on its members to help the government suppress material deemed subversive or immoral.
"Unhealthy information" online has harmed Chinese children and threatens social stability, the Internet Society of China said in a statement. The 5-year-old group is the government-sanctioned association for Internet service providers and Chinese Web sites.
"We should run our business in a civilized way," said the statement issued Wednesday and reported by the government's Xinhua News Agency. "We should not produce, disseminate and spread information that harms state security, social stability and information that violates laws and regulations and social morality."
The group called for its 2,600 member companies to supervise content, delete "unhealthy" information and oppose acts that undermine "Internet civilization," Xinhua said.
China's communist government encourages Internet use for education and business but tries to block access to sensitive material. The country has the world's second-largest Internet population after the United States with 110 million people online.
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