New Delhi: China’s internet watchdog has initially moved against two major platforms, the ByteDance-owned news application Jinri Toutiao and Alibaba’s internet browser company UCWeb, accusing them of spreading harmful material on their internet browser. The move was officially announced on Tuesday, a day after Beijing launched a two-month campaign to tighten control over online content. The Cyberspace Administration of China has stated that it would crack down on material that fuels malicious incitement of conflict or encourages negative outlooks on life, such as world weariness.
The authorities in Beijing have already required the social media firms to heavily police their platforms, keeping out anything they judge subversive, pornographic, vulgar or otherwise damaging. The CAC has already penalised three well-known sites, Weibo, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu, for what it is calling poor oversight of the content. The regulator has not disclosed what punishment they faced. The news applications app came under fire, allowing harmful content to appear on the main page of its trending searches.
The CAC stated that the company had failed in its duty to manage information properly and, in doing so, had damaged the online ecosystem. Actions taken against the firm include summoning the company for the meeting, ordering rectifications within the specified time limit, issuing a warning, and strictly dealing with those responsible, but now there are no further details to be released. Internet regulators will continue to focus on prominent illegal and non-compliant activities that undermine the online ecosystem.
Alibaba UCweb also faces sanctions; the CAC accused the browser service of posting entries which are linked to extremely sensitive and malicious issues, citing subjects such as online violence and the privacy of minors. The two-month campaign, launched on Monday, will aim at a wide range of online browsers. The regulator said the drive is designed to regulate the malicious incitement of conflict, the promotion of violence and the vicious currents. It also wanted to stamp out the attempts to exploit trending events by forcibly associating identity, region or gender with the other information, stigmatising and hyping them.
