Police in Foshan City, Guangdong Province, have arrested a blogger who shared his experiences with prostitutes on his blog, accusing him of spreading obscene material on the internet, the Guangzhou Daily reported Wednesday.
The blogger, called Lin Chenglong, allegedly uploaded his diary including photos on his blog called "Eating, Drinking, Whoring, and Gambling," every time he visited prostitutes.
Lin, who is reportedly 22 and hails from Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, once worked for a company in Shishan town, Nanhai district, in Foshan City.
The Nanhai Procuratorate told the Guangzhou Daily that Lin applied for a blog account, using the online name Foshan Cannon, in March 2009, and since then he has posted regular accounts of his sexual encounters.
In some online diaries, he gave details such as location and prices of the sexual trade. He also referred to the various "servers" the prostitutes and made comments about their "special services".
A member of the public had originally posted a message online with a link to Lin''s blog that alerted the authorities. The message has been removed, but it had already been seen by many people. Some of these netizens have managed to determine that Lin''s encounters took place in different spots in Foshan.
Lin has reportedly visited prostitutes over 70 times since March 2010, and posted details about 48 of them online until his arrest on November 21.
The authorities referred to 9 pictures and 48 diary entries that Lin posted online as obscene. His blog has received 124,000 visits, with 4,499 for the obscene photos and 7,025 for the sex diaries.
In addition, the images and texts were reposted on another forum and received over 50-thousand visits, the Guangzhou Daily reported.
Some netizens have accused Lin of self-promotion, saying he wrote the blogs because he wanted to be famous.
But Lin told the Southern Metropolis Daily that he posted the blogs because he likes to keep a diary, and he thinks that visiting prostitutes is interesting. He said that he had only meant to preserve the memory for himself, and had not intended it as a ploy to get more clicks.
He is now remorseful. "I feel very sorry for causing such a big impact, and I can give you my password and please delete the blogs for me to reduce their effect," he told the Southern Metropolis Daily.
The Nanhai Procuratorate told Chinese media that many people find Lin''s blog with the information of his sexual encounters very "seductive", and they would possibly imitate him, causing "severe consequences."
The procuratorate also called on the local authorities to inspect the brothels mentioned in the blog.
A police officer surnamed Huang involved in monitoring the internet at Foshan Municipal Public Security Bureau, told the Global Times that they do not detain or arrest netizens who put porn or obscene material online unless they put a large quantity of such content on the web. Huang said that they usually delete the "unhealthy" online content, or remind the forum moderators to deal with the issue.
According to Huang, Lin is the first netizen arrested in the city for spreading obscene content online.
