GemiFinance
Technology

China scours social websites, erases 1000s of accounts

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s top cyber authority has scrubbed 9,800 social networking accounts of independent news providers deemed to possess posted sensational, vulgar or politically harmful content on the net, it said late on Monday.

China’s strict online censorship rules have tightened these days with new legislation to limit media outlets, surveillance measures for media sites and rolling campaigns to take out content deemed unacceptable.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said inside a statement the campaign, launched on Oct. 20, had erased the accounts for violations that included “spreading politically harmful information, maliciously falsifying (Chinese Communist) party history, slandering heroes and defaming the nation’s image.”

CAC also summoned social networking giants, including Tencent’s <0700.HK> Wechat and Sina-owned <SINA.O> Weibo, warning them against failing to prevent “uncivilized growth” and “all sorts of chaos” among independent media on their own platforms.

“The chaos among self-media accounts has seriously trampled around the dignity in the law and damaged the interests with the masses,” CAC said.

The term “self-media” is usually utilized on Chinese social media marketing to spellout independent news accounts that leave original content but aren’t officially registered while using authorities.

Such accounts have proliferated lately and consist of hard-hitting investigative journalism to celebrity gossip or lewd content. Lots of people are hugely popular resulting from offering more novel and sensational news than official sources.

Online commentators noted that a lot of the accounts closed had been sharing false or pornographic content – both of which are illegal in China – and lamented that most of the accounts targeted during this latest sweep seemed to have merely been too critical.

One Weibo user questioned why a craft and entertainment blog called “youshuguang” was blocked.

“The one I really don’t get is youshuguang, who made no manifestation of violations and wrote emotive content in a very well-behaved manner. Why were they still blocked?” the Weibo user wrote.

“You receive blocked for those who write the fact, get blocked if you write lies, what are visit supposed to say?”

NGOCN, an group that produced popular articles about social issues in China, also had two accounts deleted but pledged within a statement to carry on producing content.

“It becomes an era of accounts being obliterated,” the group said. “It went collected from one of article being blocked, on the censorship of some prohibited speech… then today all of the sudden, we’ve got no account.”

(Reporting by Christian Shepherd and Beijing newsroom; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Related posts

Bitcoin drops to one-year low as slump persists; ethereum down sharply

admin

Tencent cuts marketing pay off games amid China crackdown: sources

admin

Netflix tests cheaper mobile-only plan in Malaysia

admin

Leave a Comment

Skip to toolbar