China has launched the latest campaign against pornography on the Internet that will also take aim at fraud, illegal lotteries and "rumor-spreading," the Xinhua news agency said.

"The boom of pornographic content on the Internet has contaminated cyberspace and perverted China's young minds," it quoted Zhang Xinfeng, vice-minister of public security, as saying in a late night report.

"The inflow of pornographic materials from abroad and lax domestic control are to blame for the existing problems in China's cyberspace," Zhang said.

The campaign will crack down on "distributing pornographic materials and organizing cyber strip shows, and purge the Web of sexually explicit images, stories, and audio and video clips," it added.

Zhang said they will target "content that spreads rumors and is of a slanderous nature" as well, though he did not provide details.

"China has roughly 123 million Internet users, most of whom are young people. The Chinese government believes they need to be protected from negative on-line influences," Xinhua said.

Last November a Chinese court sentenced the founder of the country's largest pornography Web site to life imprisonment.