http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/901784.shtml
Govt takes down illegal websites
By Liu Sha
Source: Global Times
Published: 2015-1-14 0:48:02
Many of affected sites claim to be State-owned media
China's Internet regulator announced on
Tuesday that it has closed 50 illegal websites, website columns, and public
WeChat accounts in the past two months.
The closure affected 17 public accounts on WeChat, 25 sites and sections of
nine other sites, Jiang Jun, a spokesperson at China's Cyberspace
Administration, said at a Tuesday press conference.
He said that the websites and website channels were closed for spreading lewd
or pornographic content.
Some closed public accounts were found masquerading as public organizations or
media groups, such as the People's Daily and inspection groups of the Communist
Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
Others were closed for publishing political news without permits, selling
counterfeit invoices and spreading information about gambling and guns, the
Xinhua News Agency reported.
Many websites claim to be State-owned media with names similar to
"People's Daily" for profit reasons. The sites publish negative
stories on local governments or companies and then attempt to extort money from
their victims to suppress their "coverage," a Beijing-based networks
expert told the Global Times on condition of anonymity, adding that authorities
will approach those so-called news websites or public accounts with more
caution in the future.
Meanwhile, the government will continue to push a real-name registration system
this year on Weibo and Tieba, a forum-like platform provided by Chinese search
engine company Baidu.
Although some users commented online that it was the first time a real-name
system would be applied to Tieba, Hu Yong, an Internet expert at Peking
University, said that it is merely a reiteration of pre-existing rules.
The real-name registration system was first applied to Weibo in 2012. In August
2014, the Cyberspace Administration released 10 provisions regulating Chinese
instant message service providers' implementation of real-name registration
policies.
"Strict management of information providers on the Internet is the norm in
China in recent years," said Hu, adding that many Internet service
providers had already implemented real-name registration systems even before
authorities provided detailed instructions.
At the end of 2014, over 80 percent of WeChat users had registered with their
real identities, with the number as high as 90 percent for other instant
messaging platforms, said Xu Feng, head of the Cyberspace Administration's
mobile network bureau. At the end of 2014, WeChat had over 600 million users,
500 million of whom were in China.
"All the closures and orders are in line with laws and regulations by the
State Council," an employee with the administration told the Global Times.
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