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A Rare Look Inside China's Porn Censors

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Last month, Kotaku posted a job listing for a porn censor in China. Maybe you applied! Maybe you didn't. But if you were curious what kind of people censor porn in China, here's your chance to have a peek.

In an interview with China's Hunan Television (via SCMP), 70 year-old Liu Xiaozhen talked about his job working at the Hunan provincial "eliminate pornography and illegal publications" office.

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According to Liu, the job was, at first, quite awkward, causing his face and ears to turn red and his heart to race. Now a seasoned pro, Liu has even won a national award in 2008 for writing about censoring porn, reports the South China Morning Post.

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Last month, Liu and three colleagues had to go through seven hundred confiscated DVDs and classify them—in one week. The videos were classified as "pornographic", "obscene", and "others". This classification helps the Chinese legal system determine what charges should be meted out.

"You have to watch even if you don't want to watch," Liu said in the report (via SCMP). "But when you're in this job, you have to watch very closely, and once you've watched, you classify."

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To become a censor, the Hunan Television report says that one must be married and have gone through training. Porn spotting training, apparently.

"You have to watch it even if you don't want to" [SCMP via ShanghaiIst]

To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft.

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