China makes attempts to filter the Web from porn
In an attempt to filter the web of obscene content that aims to spread porn across the globe China has issued a list of nineteen major websites and online portals that include Baidu and Google. This announcement was made public by the state media.
The news was revealed as a number of Chinese government agencies along with the Ministry of Public Security have launched a month long campaign targeted at cleaning up the web.
The deputy director of the State Council Information Office said on Monday during a teleconference “The government will continue to expose, punish or even shut down those infamous Web sites that refuse to correct their wrongdoing,” He further added “Immediate action is needed to purify the Internet environment.”
Amongst the portals that have been accused of promoting pornographic content are Netease, Sohu and Sina. Along with this China has also issued a ban on those websites that link to other pornographic sites as well as those websites that failed to remove pornographic content from their pages after having been warned by the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center.
The center also brought Google into the lime light saying that it provides “a large number of links to porn Web sites in search results for web pages and images.” According to the news agency Xinhua Google had been notified before but the company failed to take any action against the issue.
A spokeswoman for Google China, Cui Jin told the news agency that Google was not involved in promoting such content intentionally. She said “Google is neither the owner of those Web sites and porn nor does it spread (that) information intentionally,”
China has been severely criticized for some of the censorship actions that it has taken such as restricting Web access for the ordinary citizens as well as banning foreign media from covering the Olympics that took place in Beijing .
The U.S State Department has been quick to note that China has stepped up its efforts to “control and censor the Internet, and the government had tightened restrictions on freedom of speech and the domestic press and bloggers.”
The Prime Minister of China, Wen Jiabao made his assessment of the problem clear during an interview with CNN where he said “the freedom of Internet in China is recognized by many, even from the West. Nonetheless, to uphold state security, China, like many countries in the world, has also imposed some proper restrictions. That is for the safety, that is for the overall safety of the country and for the freedom of the majority of the people.”
Taking to the streets for People’s Choice Awards
In the land of the people governed by the people the man of the people, entertainment reporter Michael Hundgen has taken to the streets of Hollywood in order to get first hand opinions straight from the streets.
The People’s Choice Awards are right around the corner. This is a show that honors what movies and television shows fans like most. In order to find out from the people themselves Michael Hundgen decided to give his show a little twist by roaming the streets himself. The show focused on polling three of the biggest blockbusters of 2008. These included “The Dark Knight” “Iron Man” and “Indiana Jones.”
When asked, Erin from Alaska said” I would say ‘The Dark Knight’ because I love Christian Bale.” The results from the show revealed that Mark Walberg, Brad Pitt and Christian Bale were the top three fan favorite actors of the season. 
Michael Hundgen went around asking people of all kinds and ages. A little girl was asked to voice her vote for her favorite movie of the season from “WALL-E”, “Chronicles of Narnia” and Kung Fu Panda.” Her top choice was “Kung Fu Panda.”
Amongst the actresses the Michael lined up the show host Queen Latifah, Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway. The fans were smart about this one and almost unanimously cast their vote for the host of the show, Queen Latifah.
Hundgen also asked polled for TV actors in a line up that included Hugh Laurie, Charlie Sheen and Patrick Dempsey. Erin from Alaska casted her vote for Charlie Sheen, saying “We love bad boys in Alaska.”
The past year saw many big time stars filling guest spots on TV shows. The list ranges from Britney Spears who performed How I met your mother and Robin Williams and Luke Perry both of them giving a performance of “Law & Order SVU”.
In the world of music Kay Perry’s “I kissed a girl”, Rihanna’s “Disturbia” and Jordin Sparks’ “No Air” got nominated. The fans voted in for Katy Perry’s hit single which seemed to be the favorite on the streets of Hollywood.
Michael told the early show co-anchor Julie Chen “The voting is still open on four categories; you can do that all online at pcavote.com.” Michael said regarding the big interviews that he has coming up “Yeah, a big interview with the host and also nominee Queen Latifah and also an interview with Carrie Underwood, she is nominated as well.”