Impressionable kids hooked by vulgar videos

A VIDEO CLIP showing a motorcyclist in Zhaotong, Yunnan province, carrying six primary school pupils on his motorbike has proved popular after it was shown online. China Education Daily commented on Thursday:

While the man's behavior was dangerous and should have raised concerns, as the comments show, most viewers found the clip amusing rather than alarming. But many other popular video clips have contained violent and sexual content unfit for public consumption.

Ironically, the websites that stream such videos are among the most vibrant dotcom companies and they have attracted a lot of investment. But what they do is basically the same, attracting viewers with sensational short videos, some of which are coarsely staged and produced, while some are suspected of violating relevant rules and laws. It is strange that these practices have been tolerated for so long by the authorities.

Most of the viewers are adolescents, who tend to find such content appealing. This creates an unhealthy circle in which unsuitable content is the bait for huge audience which makes people put money into the companies in the expectation of quick returns, which in turn prompts even more salacious and violent content to attract more viewers. It is only the investors who benefit from such a business model.

The competition for attracting eyeballs means the sites pursue the strange, exciting and absurd, and youngsters who lack the ability to judge the value of what they are viewing are misguided.

The internet service providers and public security administrative authorities are obliged to take joint actions to clean up the video streaming websites. The legislature needs to amend the law to strictly ban the vulgar videos and increase the penalties for those that break the law.

It is time to remove these tumors in cyberspace.