China has issued a warning to search engine company Baidu over the presence of pornographic content on the company's online storage service, according to China's Xinhua News Agency.
The warning was released after investigations carried out by cultural administrative authorities in Beijing confirmed the presence of the content.
Tip-offs by the public informed the authorities that there were some accounts hosted by Baidu Cloud that held pornographic and inappropriate material, according to a statement that was released by the anti-pornography and anti-illegal publications office of Beijing.
The office issued a warning against Baidu for the company's lack of supervision on the online storage service that it hosts.
Baidu was also urged to "promptly delete all files in question, shut down accounts uploading such content and present a report on its clean-up effort."
Xinhua's attempts to contact Baidu for a statement were unsuccessful. However, an anti-pornography slogan in red letters was posted at the Baidu Cloud website, with a forum post stating that the company has begun to check the shared files of the users of the company's online storage service for pornographic content.
"In order to cleanse cyber environment, Baidu Cloud thoroughly bans the sharing of pornographic content... Users are welcome to report improper resources," stated a Baidu post dating back to April, which is the month that China started its high-profile investigation against online pornographic content.
The investigation is formally named the "Cleaning the Web 2014" project, which was launched in April and is planned to be finished by November. The campaign is a part of the wider initiatives within the country to "clean up" China's online activity, including the crackdown on the freedom of expression online within the country. The intensity in the implementation of the campaign increased when President Xi Jinping gained his position early in 2013.
The campaign investigates websites, advertisements, posts in forums, smartphone applications, and other content accessible online. According to a report from the office, the campaign has resulted in the closure of 1,222 websites and the removal 2,200 lines of text that include pornographic information.
Portal Sina.com and video website Qvod have previously received warnings from authorities, threatening to have their operation licenses revoked, for spreading inappropriate content.
Back in May, Sina received a 5.1 million yuan fine for its violation of the regulations, as Beijing authorities discovered "unhealthy and indecent content" on both the company's online reading channel and on the main website.
