Users at an internet cafe in China.

China’s biggest web company, Tencent, and one of its biggest video-streaming websites, Sohu, were each fined RMB 50,000 by the National Office of Anti-Pornography and Anti-Illegal Publication for disseminating pornographic material, China News reported.

The online content watchdog, under the leadership of the Central Leading Group for Propaganda and Ideological Work, posted a list of 14 cases involving organizations and individuals accused of spreading pornography online via WeChat.

During an inspection in late August, the Beijing Law Enforcement Department found Sohu had disseminated obscene online games and reading materials. The obscene content included a number of lewd video games with titles such as Virtual Teenage Girl Strategy 3.

Tencent was blamed by the office because WeChat and Tencent Weibo, two apps run by the company, were found to have provided platforms for spreading the pornographic materials.

A man in Lanzhou, China accidentally broadcasted porn on a big outdoor screen.

Chinese video downloading website Xunlei was also fined RMB 50,000 after the office found that one of the website’s downloading apps allowed users to download pornographic video content.

A Beijing tech company and several individual suspects from Guangdong, Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang were also being investigated, according to the report.

Earlier in May, Qvod, one of the country’s most popular online video-streaming and downloading websites, was fined RMB 260 million ($42.3 million) for sharing pornographic materials and violating copyright infringement.

The series of fines given out by the office show renewed efforts to “sweep out yellow and strike out illegals”, referring to an anti-pornography and anti-illegal publication campaign.

Photos: Getty Image; Sina Weibo

The new offices of the Shenzhen-based maker of the popular WeChat app are shown in a pictorial published in Business Insider. Eight-hundred Tencent employees will be enjoying things like a two-story slide to pop downstairs and a wall made out of plants.

We don’t see any Segways that are ubiquitous on high-tech campuses, but we’re still very impressed with this modern design that is practical, elegant, and doesn’t look like a kitchen instrument or a pair of pants.

Photos: Business Insider

It should be no surprise then that Shenzhen also leads the way when it comes to internet penetration rates and use of Sina’s popular Weibo microblogging service.  The Shenzhen Development Internet Research Report found that Shenzhen’s internet penetration rate is 76.8%, well ahead of Beijing and Shanghai. It means means 7.97 million people are online in the city.

Liu Bing, vice-president of China Internet Information Center, said that Shenzhen’s netizens infrastructure is better than most cities in China. Netizens between 20 to 40 year-old account for approximately 60%. Take a closer look on these young netizens, student groups are comparatively smaller while on-job groups are bigger. Netizens’ education level is higher than the national average.

Guangzhou’s rate stands at 72.9%, also ahead of Beijing and Shanghai.

As for Sina Weibo use, the report says it is used by 58.6% of netizens in Shenzhen, which is 10 percentage points higher than the national average.

At the same time, Shenzhen weibo users are more active. The ratio of netizens who use weibo 3 times per day is 16 percentage points higher than the average. Weibo users that spent more than 2 hours per day account for 35.3%.

Except for performance on weibo, Shenzhen netizens are also more active on SNS, blogs, BBS and online videos compared with netizens in other first-tier cities.

Perhaps Beijing’s vaunted Zhongguancun won’t be considered ground zero for China’s tech industry for much longer.

(h/t @Chomagerider)

(drawing by Li Yong)

WeChat, also known as Weixin, has been growing like a bad weed in China these days.  The iOS and Android app is now being used by more than 200 million people, and is the pick-up tool of choice for many laowai in China because it facilitates chatting with nearby strangers.

Given how ubiquitous the tool has become, it’s not surprising that a scam has finally surfaced.  Users in Dongguan are being warned after a woman met up with a stranger she had chatted with on the service in April this year. The stranger then threatened her and demanded she hand over her bank card, Southern Metropolis Daily reports.

The woman, who works in a hotel, was invited by a Weixin contact to meet up and have a chat. In the end, she met an accomplice of a criminal surnamed Lu, who comes from Hubei Province and ran a restaurant with another man Jian before it went out of business.

Unable to support themselves, Lu and Jian set up a criminal gang. As part of the arrangement, Lu’s girlfriend and brother used Weixin to meet and then steal from strangers.

Police say there have been six similar cases in Dongguan this year involving rape, theft and blackmail.

Police explained that because Weixin is newer than rival services such as QQ, it is poorly policed. They warned residents to be vigilant when using the service, and not to meet strangers who refused to identify themselves or asked to borrow things.