Chinese Tech Detects Brain Watching Porn
Is China using brain monitoring to detect porn?
Yes. Porn is illegal in China, and the South China Morning Post reports the government developed a helmet for its professional porn appraisers that detects a spike in brain waves when explicit images appear. Reported accuracy is 80 percent, though it was tested on only 15 male university students. Violators can face life imprisonment. External controls restrain behavior, but lasting change has to come from within.
Did you know that porn is illegal in China? That’s right, illegal. In their efforts to clamp down on the production, spread and consumption of porn, they’re now using neural monitoring to enforce their strict laws on porn.
The Chinese have tried using artificial intelligence to enforce their censorship of pornography on the internet. However, they found the human eye and brain are still faster and more effective in scanning content for sexually indecent images.
A helmet made by the Chinese can “mind-read” and set off an alarm when porn is viewed.
Therefore, Chinese authorities hire professional porn appraisers, called jian huang shi- whose job is to scroll through images posted online looking for inappropriate content. However, fatigue and emotions from viewing images all day can interfere with their accuracy in detecting sexual content.
Their solution? According to the South China Morning Post, China developed a device for their jian huang shi to wear while policing the internet.
This “porn policing helmet” detects a spike in brain waves when explicit imagery is viewed and sets off an alarm. The porn appraiser only has to passively sit in front of the screen with their eyes open for this device to monitor neural activity.
Cracking Down
Pornography violators suffer severe consequences. Section 9 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China states that those who produce, spread or sell any content with sexually explicit content can find themselves facing life imprisonment.
The crackdown is not limited to internet porn. It also includes periodicals, movies, audio content, books, and pictures. In 2018, Ms. Li, with pen name Tianyi, was arrested and sentenced to 10 years for writing an erotic novel with homosexual content.
The Chinese government subscribes to the belief that
“disseminating pornographic information online severely harms the physical and mental health of minors and seriously corrupts social ethos.”
Related Article: Exposing The Porn Industry: It's Not As It Seems
Many campaigns were launched to censor porn use and distribution, including the “1983 Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign” and the “Cleaning of the Web 2014.”
Tens of thousands of people in China have been arrested, fined, or sentenced to imprisonment during these efforts to control the spread and use of porn.
Related Article: Will my brain change?
Ulterior Motives
The Jerusalem Post argues that the campaigns are more than just a concern for their citizen’s health. The newspaper states China has long been vocal about its views on “sex as ‘distracting the proletariat’ from the Marxist cause.”
The Jerusalem Post adds
“the Chinese government, armed with cutting-edge technologies, has the power to monitor and intrude on people’s private affairs in ways that the Communist party never could, and it has shown no hesitation in doing so.”
According to the South China Morning Post, this porn policing device is 80% accurate. However, the test was conducted on a small sample size of 15 male university students, which is a very small sample size of the 1.4 billion population in China. Additionally, most porn appraisers, hired by Chinese officials, are women, and this study was only conducted on men.
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Brain differences between men and women could contribute to drastically different results.
Drastic Measures
Porn was never God’s intention for human sexuality. The Chinese inadvertently discovered how porn numbs the receiver. Normal human arousals are dulled and require a machine interface to detect when the monitor is actually viewing porn.
Related Article: How Sexual Sin Sears Your Conscience (VIDEO)
Fatigue may have a part in this puzzle, but the pornography appraiser’s constantly evolving sense of “what is pornography?” becomes corroded by the continuous exposure.
The underlying question is, “how ethical is this?” An anonymous researcher of this study, from the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, Anhui, voiced their concern:
“There is no law to regulate the use of such devices or protect the data they collected.”
Has the Chinese government gone too far trying to control and censor pornography, or do drastic times call for drastic measures?
Related Article: How To Delete Porn From Your Brain
Related Article: Defeat Porn by Understanding Your Brain's Arousal Template
A Better Way
Although the world may not always see eye to eye with China and their Communist ways, they certainly got one thing right: porn is a threat to society! And as extreme as their methods may sound, it will hopefully dissuade many from falling into the porn trap.
But these external solutions can only go so far. To really be free and abstain from consuming porn, change needs to come from within.
The Conquer Series, a powerful cinematic series offering proven strategies and daily practical tools to conquer porn and find freedom, helps men and women retrain a brain that’s hooked on porn.
Related Article: When Trying Harder Isn’t Enough
Instead of continuing on the “try harder” path (that is doomed to failure), former Marine Fighter Pilot and Pastor Dr. Ted Roberts, host of the Conquer Series, will teach you how to biblically renew your mind and find freedom.
Breaking free from porn will not be easy. It will take some hard work and the willingness to be honest and open with yourself and other men. But your marriage will become stronger and you will be free of the guilt and shame of pornography addiction.
Sign up for digital access to the Conquer Series and get started on the path to being porn-free.
Walking with women through betrayal and broken trust toward practical tools, honest community, and real hope for healing.
More articles by Kristina Douberly →Frequently Asked Questions
Is porn illegal in China?
Yes. Section 9 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China provides that anyone who produces, spreads, or sells sexually explicit content can face life imprisonment, and the ban covers periodicals, movies, audio content, books, and pictures as well as the internet. In 2018 a writer was sentenced to ten years for an erotic novel. The government holds that "disseminating pornographic information online severely harms the physical and mental health of minors and seriously corrupts social ethos."
How accurate is China's porn detection helmet?
The South China Morning Post reports the device is 80 percent accurate, but that figure deserves scrutiny. The test used a sample of only 15 male university students, a vanishingly small slice of a population of 1.4 billion. Most of the porn appraisers actually hired by Chinese officials are women, and the study included no women at all, so brain differences between men and women could change the results considerably.
What is a jian huang shi?
Jian huang shi are China's professional porn appraisers, hired to scroll through images posted online and flag anything sexually indecent. Authorities turned to human reviewers because artificial intelligence could not match the speed and effectiveness of the human eye and brain. The problem is that fatigue and the emotional toll of viewing such images all day interfere with accuracy, which is what the brain-wave helmet was built to solve.
Why does viewing porn all day numb a person?
Because repeated exposure dulls normal human arousal until it barely registers. That is the unsettling thing China stumbled onto: their appraisers became so desensitized that a machine interface was needed to detect when they were actually looking at porn. Fatigue plays a part, but so does a steadily corroding sense of what even counts as pornography anymore. Porn was never God's intention for human sexuality, and this is one reason why.
Do porn bans and blockers actually work?
Only up to a point. External controls can restrain behavior and may dissuade some people from falling into the trap, but they cannot change what a person wants. Real freedom requires change from the inside, which means retraining a brain that has been hooked on porn rather than staying on the try-harder path. That work is not easy and it requires honesty with yourself and with other men.
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