Beijing - China has launched a campaign
to clean up its internet, state media said on Wednesday, amid a
fresh wave of apparent censorship by authorities that has
blocked more foreign media websites and shut down domestic
accounts on social media.
The "rectification" effort was launched in May by the
cyberspace administration, the information technology ministry,
the public security bureau and the markets regulator and will
run until the end of the year, the official Xinhua news agency
said.
The campaign will punish and expose websites for "illegal
and criminal actions", failing to "fulfil their obligation" to
take safety measures or the theft of personal information, it
added.
The campaign follows a series of shutdowns and blockages of
certain websites and social media accounts.
Several foreign media beyond Beijing's control, such as the
Washington Post and The Guardian, have not been accessible
online since last weekend, adding to a list of blocked sites
that includes Reuters.
Online Chinese financial news publication Wallstreetcn.com
said on Monday it took its website and mobile app offline at the
authorities' request, but gave no details of the rules it may
have broken.
Social media accounts ranging from those publishing
politically sensitive material to financial news have also been
shut.
Authorities said in November they shut 9,800 accounts of
news providers deemed to be posting sensational, vulgar or
politically harmful content.
The Chinese internet regulator's Shanghai office said in a
statement on Wednesday that it and the markets regulator's
Shanghai office summoned representatives from Baidu Inc
and criticised the firm for unethical advertising using vulgar
content or overly sensational titles.
The authorities ordered the search engine operator to
rectify its advertising business to eliminate such practices,
according to the statement, which quoted a Baidu representative
as saying the firm would make necessary changes.
When asked for comment, a Baidu representative referred to
the remarks in the statement without commenting further.
In recent years, China has regularly campaigned to police
its internet, shutting down websites, social media accounts and
mobile apps.
"The cleaning drives are not purely political. Many,
possibly even most, of those accounts were probably spam, porn
or other types of content that the platforms have made clear are
undesirable and unwelcome," said Fergus Ryan, an analyst with
the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
"The problem is that in among those legitimate removals are
accounts that are removed for political reasons."
Shimin Fang, a popular science writer who drew public
scrutiny in China for critical comments about telecommunications
giant Huawei Technologies Co, said he found out on
Tuesday all of his Chinese social media accounts had been taken
down.
Fang, who lives in the United States, said he did not know
what had happened until some readers told him they could no
longer find his postings and that the platform operators would
not tell him why his accounts were shut down.
"My guess is that from now on any influential self-media
accounts will not be allowed to exist, no matter (if) they are
political or not," Fang told Reuters in an email.
The term "self-media" is mostly used on Chinese social media
to describe independent news accounts that produce original
content but are not officially registered with the authorities.
"The Chinese internet winter is coming," Fang said.