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    Half Tones

    Chat Admins Jailed for Pornography Shared Under Their Watch

    Sep 03, 2019

    Three administrators of a chat group on social app QQ have been sentenced to jail terms ranging from 10 months to one year for allowing people to share hundreds of sexually explicit videos in the chat, Sixth Tone’s sister publication, The Paper, reported Tuesday.

    The men — surnamed Mao, Xie, and Liu — joined the chat in 2016 and were later appointed group admins, according to the report. Between July and September of 2017, Mao and other members posted hundreds of pornographic images and videos in the 447-person chat. During their investigation, authorities in the southern Guangdong province determined that 221 videos shared in the group contained obscene material.

    A court in Yangshan County in the city of Qingyuan ruled “recently” — The Paper’s report did not specify when — that, by allowing the group members to share indecent material, the three defendants had failed to “exercise their duties as group chat administrators.” The court further determined that their actions constituted “spreading pornography,” which is a crime under Chinese law.

    In October 2017, the country’s cyberspace administration implemented a regulation that made group administrators legally responsible for content shared under their watch. A year later, a 31-year-old man in the southwestern Yunnan province was sentenced to six months in prison over pornographic content that had been shared in a WeChat group he managed. (Image: VCG)