30,000 Arrested in China's Great Porn Purge

If you love porn and/or gambling and you live in China, you are basically shit out of luck. And possibly already in jail, from the looks of how things went down this weekend.

In the beginning of 2014, China launched an anti-pornography campaign to clean up the Internet. (Good luck with that, China! I can’t even clean up all the spambots advertising Cialis in my Twitter followers.) Over the weekend, the government struck hard against those in violation of the ban, Reuters reports:

In the latest arrests, police in the southern province of Guangdong arrested 3,014 and put more than 8,000 in criminal detention as of Dec. 15, Xinhua [the official news agency] reported the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department as saying. In Huizhou City, police busted an online gambling ring involving funds of 30 million yuan ($4.82 million) on Nov. 24. Gambling has been illegal on mainland China since 1949, though a state lottery does operate.

Before you go grabbing your pitchforks decoupaged with the American flag and screaming “UGH CHINA UGH COMMIES” don’t forget this isn’t all that different from what other countries, including the United Kingdom, are trying to do with pornographic imagery on the Internet. That’s worked out awesomely well for them so far.

If there’s one thing we know, when you crackdown on sex and make it more taboo and more risky and dangerous, people will totally just realize that it’s probably not worth their time and go read a book on 18th century brass etchings. Especially when the government tells you that looking at sexy images is bad; that always works like a charm. (Who wants to dabble in sexual acts that are forbidden? That’s a total turnoff!)