(Reuters) - Chinese search engine giant Baidu has been told by authorities to clean up its content after pornographic files were found on its online storage service, the official Xinhua news service said late on Sunday.

It said the instruction was given after Beijing's cultural administrative authorities confirmed public tip-offs that some Baidu Cloud accounts hosted obscene content, citing a statement by Beijing's anti-pornography and anti-illegal publications office.

Baidu declined to provide immediate comment when contacted by phone.

China's authorities launched an anti-pornography campaign in April as part of wider efforts to 'clean up' the Internet, and a crackdown on online freedom of expression which has intensified since President Xi Jinping came to power early last year.

In May, Internet firm Sina Corp was fined 5.1 million yuan by Beijing authorities for allowing "unhealthy and indecent content" on its online reading channel and on its main website.

 

(Reporting by Brenda Goh; Additional Reporting by Paul Carsten; Editing by Eric Meijer)