YNOT – Within the past six weeks, the Chinese government has paid 215 whistleblowers a total of 224,000 yuan (about U.S. $33,000) for reporting smut they found online. The bounties are part of China’s latest effort to sanitize the web. Rewards ranged from 1,000 yuan (about U.S. $146) to 10,000 yuan each.Between Dec. 4 and Jan. 15, officials received more than 90,000 tips from average citizens hoping to cash in by ratting out websites that violate the government’s censorship policies. In all of 2009, 15,000 websites offering explicit adult content — including 11,000 mobile sites — were shut down or blocked, according to official news agency Xinhua.

The bounty program has been so successful since its inception in early December that the National Anti-Pornography and Anti-Illegal Publications Office, the agency tasked with administering the program, plans “to offer even more money to those who report, to encourage people to proactively participate” in the campaign, a Xinhua report noted. The payments are expected to continue through May, according to a spokesman with the national agency.

In January of last year, China’s Culture Ministry launched a massive effort to remove from the web any sites containing pornography or politically sensitive material. The government of the People’s Republic has said the move is an attempt to “purify the social environment.” In addition to porn and criticism, sites have been removed or blocked because they contain sex-related medical research or information about video games that promote drug use, “obscenity,” gambling or crimes such as rape, vandalism and theft.