New Delhi, Oct 28 China has banned 1,414 works of online literature on the grounds that it was of a pornographic nature in a nationwide campaign to eradicate lewd contents from the Internet.

The move is the latest in a string of drives to crack down on pornographic and lewd content on the Internet.

About 30,000 web links to the banned works and 20 online literature websites were closed after scrutiny of about 4,000 literature websites by more than 50 experts organized by the GAPP since January, the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) said in a statement on Tuesday.

The banned works either included pornographic content, used provocative or privacy-violating titles to draw attention, or blatantly talked about one-night stands, wife swapping, sex abuses, and violence that disregarded common decency, the GAPP said.

The administration would also establish laws and regulations on the publishing of literature online; Xinhua quoted the statement, as saying.

In June, the government ordered all new personal computers produced or sold in China after July 1 to carry "Green Dam-Youth Escort," a filtering software designed to block pornographic content.

The software was declared not compulsory by the government in August after it aroused huge controversy, as Internet users accused it of privacy invasion and blocking information. (ANI)