Authorities must not turn blind eye to violent videos

A LARGE NUMBER of violent video clips supposedly showing acts of revenge have appeared on several video-sharing websites. In fact, the essence of these films is to publicize violence and has nothing to do with "behaving righteously". They are suspected of violating the network security law and promoting violence. Beijing News comments:

The violent video clips are all similar: Someone who is being bullied by a neighbor seeks help from a "big brother" and his gang.

The video clips contain many bloody scenes of the gangs' violent acts of retribution.

All these videos are actually planned and "directed" by the gangs in order to attract eyeballs. By making and spreading the videos, they aim to attract bigger audiences so as to make more money.

Worse, an interest chain has already been formed around the violent video clips, with some people selling them to video-sharing websites and some promoting them via advertisements.

In an interview, a salesperson of the violent video clips said: "The videos won't be banned because they do not contain anything obscene."

That reveals a serious loophole with the current online video supervision system. Many regulators tend to focus on video clips with obscene content, but they often neglect other illegal content such as violence. But it is also illegal to promote violence, and violent videos should not to be treated any differently from pornographic ones. It is time to improve their supervision so as to better regulate the video-sharing websites.