China said that its police force has arrested 15,000 people for crimes that have "jeopardized Internet security".
China watchers say that President Xi Jinping has been increasingly harsh on China's internet since he took over in 2013. The Communist Party views the internet with great importance and acknowledges it needs to control it.
China launched a six-month program codenamed "Cleaning the Internet" last month. "For the next step, the public security organs will continue to increase their investigation and crackdown on cybercrimes," the ministry of public security said, according to The Guardian.
Known as the Great Firewall, China runs one of the world's most sophisticated online censorship mechanisms which wields tight control on what can be published, particularly material that could potentially undermine the ruling Communist Party, reports The Huffington Post.
China's internet watchdog had said in February that it would ban - starting on March1 - internet accounts that impersonate people or organizations, while also requiring people to use their real names when registering online accounts.
The present campaign is also focusing on breaking major cases and destroying online criminal gangs. Websites providing "illegal and harmful information" besides advertisements for pornography, explosives and firearms and gambling are being scrutinized. In total, the police said they investigated 66,000 websites, reports Business Insider.
