Ma Xiaolin frequently wrote about current affairs on Sina Weibo, one of China’s leading microblogging sites, where he has 2 million followers, but he wrote in a post that the site called and asked him not to post original content on topics ranging from politics to economic and military issues.
“As an international affairs researcher and a columnist, it looks like I can only go the route of entertainment, food and beverage now,” the international relations professor wrote on Jan. 31.
Ma, who often posted on developments in the Middle East, is one of many popular influencers working within the constraints of China’s heavily censored Web who is finding that their space to speak is shrinking even further with the latest policy changes.
Beginning next week, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) is to require bloggers and influencers to have a government-approved credential before they can publish on a wide range of subjects. Some fear that only state media and official propaganda accounts are to get permission.
While permits have been needed since at least 2017 to write about topics such as political and military affairs, enforcement has not been widespread. The new rules expand that requirement to health, economics, education and judicial matters.
“The regulators want to control the entire procedure of information production,” said Titus Chen (陳至潔), an expert on Chinese social media policy at Kaohsiung’s National Sun Yat-sen University.
The new credential requirement could restrict people from posting original content, including influencers like Ma who are not openly challenging the line of the Chinese Communist Party.
Sina Weibo CEO Wang Gaofei (王高飛), responding to Ma on the platform, said that commentary on news released by official media was permitted, but that commentators could not “release news” themselves.
The policy revision is meant “to standardize and steer public accounts and information service platforms to be more self-aware in keeping the correct direction of public opinion,” the CAC said in a posted statement.
A week after unveiling the new rules late last month, the agency held a nationwide conference on the importance of “strengthening order in online publishing.”
CAC head Zhuang Rongwen (莊榮文) said that the agency must “let our supervision and management grow teeth.”
The agency on Feb. 4 publicly announced a month-long cleanup drive targeting search engines, social media and browsers.
“It is a big deal; it’s a massive campaign,” said Xiao Qiang (蕭強), an expert on digital censorship at the University of California, Berkeley. “And these are people who didn’t write something sharp. They are intentionally not being edgy about things.”
A notice last month on Sohu, which also hosts microblogs, said that public accounts without credentials must not issue or republish current affairs news.
Banned topics include “articles and commentary on politics, economics, military affairs, and diplomatic and public affairs; taking out of context and distorting the content of the [Chinese Communist Party] and country’s history; breaking news and commentary.”
Internet giant Baidu, which also has a publishing platform, issued a similar notice.
A current affairs account on Tencent’s WeChat was last week shut down on “suspicion of providing an Internet news information service.”
Called “August Old Yu” (八月老喻), it was run by Yu Shenghong (喻聖宏), a former journalist at China Central Television.
The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have in part spurred the tightened regulations. In the early days of China’s outbreak much of the news coverage was driven by online accounts and digital-only media outlets, which circulated both news and rumors.
During the outbreak, “‘self-media’ maliciously created rumors and casually disregarded others’ privacy, severely impacting the stability and harmony of society and damaged the legal rights and interest of others,” the CAC said in a notice explaining the new policies.
Ultimately, the new rules reflect the censors’ worries, even if it is not precisely clear what they are so insecure about, Xiao said.
“In the past entire year, the control has been so tight that hardly anyone can speak about anything,” Xiao added.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS