China is paying citizens to report online porn to authorities, with nearly 200 people already compensating as the government cracks down on what it considers undesirable content.

Authorities gave the people a total of 224,000 yuan (US$33,000) as part of a policy to pay citizens for porn tip-offs, according to official Xinhua news agency.

The policy caused a government watchdog's daily number of porn tip-offs from the public to surge by 10 times immediately after it was announced last month.

The news comes as China continues a crackdown harmful online content that has spread from conventional porn Web sites to mobile porn and to online games.

Chinese officials also recently announced that Beijing and Shanghai residence who send text messages containing illegal or unhealthy content over the network of China Mobile will be temporarily blocked from sending more text messages.

China blocked or shut down more than 15,000 pornographic Web sites last year, Xinhua said.

Authorities will introduce a rating system for online games this year to crack down on vulgar content amid a soaring number of young gamers.

We will issue practical rules for online games to protect youth, Liu Qiang, head of the Internet culture department with the Ministry of Culture, told China Daily Monday.

The Chinese government has often used such arrangements to encourage self-censorship, whether of pornography or of sensitive political content, by operators of Internet services such as blogs.

Regulators previously called for online games to cut back on systems that let players get married or earn experience points by killing monsters.

Regulators this year plan to launch a rating system for online games to protect young players from vulgar content, the China Daily said.

China