China cracks down on online games: report

China has placed more than 4.65 million computers at some 80,000 Internet cafes under watch in a bid to crack down on violent or pornographic online games, state media reported Friday.

Xinhua quoted Culture Minister Cai Wu as saying in an interview that his ministry had banned 219 Internet games for carrying "lewd, pornographic and violent" content and had blocked access to games 87 million times this year.

Cai's ministry plans to step up regulation of the fast-expanding online game sector and "would improve censorship of the games in the future," Xinhua reported.

Internet use has expanded at a dizzying pace in China, which now has the world's largest online population with at least 338 million users.

The number of Internet gamers in China reached 217 million in June, or 64.2 percent of the country's online community, according to the government-linked China Internet Network Information Centre.

(c) 2009 AFP