Sexy Pics on Chinese News Sites

It seems to me that there are a lot more racy pictures on Chinese portals and news sites as compared to English-language sites. To test this, today I checked the homepages of 24 news sites (9 Chinese, 15 English). 5 out of 9 of the Chinese sites had at least one sexy photo while but only 4 out of 15 of the English sites did. Plus, of the 4 English sites with sexy photos, 2 of them lead to content regarding sex rather than babe pics. On the Chinese sites, the thumbnails lead to galleries of photos and more links to sexy galleries.

Why are there more sexy photos on mainstream Chinese websites?

First of all, the Chinese sites have much more content on their front pages to begin with – but that doesn’t explain it all.

One possibility is that lack of porn on the Chinese internet is causing people to look elsewhere for kicks. In the English-speaking world, the amount of porn on the internet is incredible. But in China, almost as much effort is put into blocking porn as is put into blocking politically sensitive content. So are the news sites and big portals filling this niche as well?

Another possibility is the nature of the way people use the internet.  A higher proportion of Chinese internet users use the internet mainly for entertainment purposes.

Finally, I think that a likely explanation is that Chinese internet users have a greater tolerance towards just about anything on the internet. Not only do these news sites have sexy photos, but they have annoying flying advertisements, ads that are made to look like they are content and more “shock” news as well.

Chinese News Sites With Sexy Pics

news.sina.com.cn

news.sohu.com

news.tom.com

news.cn.yahoo.com

news.china.com

- All of these sites link to typical sexy pics such as this one of from china.com.

English News Sites With Sexy Pics

CBC.ca
- A link to a video preview of a documentary on the porn industry. It includes a little frontal nudity.

Foxnews.com
- OK, maybe this one is expected. Fox news has a “Features & Faces” box that links to several sexy photo sets including “Try Pam’s Strip Steak” and “Bikini Fight! Kim V. Kendra”

news.com.au

abcnews.go.com
- A very small image linking to “The Truth About ‘Sexting’.” It links to an article that expresses concern about teenagers sending sexy photos to each other.

No Sexy Pics

Chinese: news.163.com, news.qq.com, news.cctv.com, xinhuanet.com

English:news.bbc.co.uk, news.yahoo.com, theglobeandmail.com, nationalpost.com, news.aol.com, cnn.com, reuters.com, nytimes.com, abc.net.au, nzherald.co.nz

P.S. The picture up top is not typical.  :)

About the author

Tait Lawton is an online marketer focused on the Chinese market. He is the founder of Nanjing Marketing Group, a company that provides Chinese-language Internet marketing services to Western clients. Tait has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from University of Alberta.
 
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