Beijing police launch Web patrols: Cartoon Communism

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Yahoo reports that begining Sept. 1, the cartoon alerts will appear every half hour on 13 of China's top portals. By the end of the year they will appear on all Web sites registered with Beijing servers.

China always roams the Internet in search of material and content that the ruling Communist Party finds politically or morally threatening. Despite their strict controls, nudity, profanity, illegal gambling and pirated music, as well as books and film have proliferated on their servers.

The animated police are designed to let the user know that authorities are never far away. The cartoons will give a text warning to surfers to abide by the law and offer tips on Internet security as they move across the screen in a car, motorcycle or on foot. If the user needs help they can click on the image and be taken to the authorities web site.

"We will continue to promote new images of the virtual police and update our Internet security tips in an effort to make the image of the virtual police more user friendly and more in tune with how web surfers use the Internet," it said.

China has the world's second-largest population of Internet users, with 137 million people online, and if it keeps growing the way they think it will, it will surpass the United States in two years.

Big brother is watching and now they will have an added reminder.