After a few weeks of uncertainty, China’s State Administration of Radio, TV and Film (SARFT), the official censor for audiovisual media, has followed up on its original demand to Tudou, China’s largest video host service — according to Danwei, the leading media blog in China.
In between, Tudou’s site closed down for 24 hours, triggering off a stream of rumors. Tudou claimed the closure was for technical reasons, although it had not been announced. Today SARFT published two lists of Chinese online video hosts: those that will be closed, and those that will be fined. Tudou is on the second list.
Originally Tudou was accused of hosting pornography. Now that accusation is unclear — but the sites that will be closed mostly are (or belong to) openly pornographic video hosts.
In this latest showdown between SARFT and Tudou, the state censor has again backed down and chosen for the second best option: make some money on the whole thing. This again illustrates that the Internet in China has its own dynamic, and the government can no longer interfere at will.
