Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s internet regulator and censor which also regulates the tech industry including social media companies, has introduced new guidelines for tech companies to moderate their platforms and how they operate in the world’s largest internet community.
The agency, which rolled out the new 13-item guidelines today, said that the new regulations are paramount “in order to strengthen the management of ‘self-media’, consolidate the main responsibility of website platform information content management, improve the normalized management system and mechanism, and promote the formation of a good network public opinion ecology.”
Under this new regulation, social media companies will now be responsible for the authentication of all content posted on their platform. They will also be tasked with enforcing the body’s “one account for one person, two accounts for one enterprise” policy and suspend or prohibit users who have not been granted “profit-making permission.” The profit-making permission is the approval one gets from the Chinese government to begin monetising their content, including posting sponsored content.
The regulation also states that social media companies must manually review accounts that contain the names or logos of party, government and military organs, news media, or administrative divisions.
It also states that the platform must display the name of service qualifications, professional qualifications, professional background and other certification materials on accounts that post content in the field of finance, education, medical and health, and justice.
Creators who post content around domestic and foreign current affairs, public policies, social events, etc., will be required to accurately label the source of their information, and display it in a prominent position when publishing.
The new set of regulations presents even more stringent oversight of not just tech companies to moderate themselves, but also what creators can post online by the Chinese Communist Party.
All “self-media that produce and release rumours, speculate on social hotspot events, or spread illegal and bad information in a matrix manner that has a bad impact, shall be shut down, included in the blacklisted account database of the platform, and reported to the cybersecurity and informatization department,” the regulation says in a section on Strict Handling of Violations.
The regulation further tightens any loopholes that users on any social media platform in the country would have used to spread any of this now-banned content, including compelling the companies to punish users who repost such content. Appropriate punishment according to the Cyberspace Administration of China includes demonetisation of the users, suspending the interactive functions of the account, banning the account, or taking away all its followers.
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The regulation didn’t give any specific criteria on how these companies should decide what falls under the so-called banned content but said that the platforms must uphold them.
China is not alone in the crackdown of influencers
It comes as lawmakers globally have been pushing for bills, not just to moderate online content, but also to use their political power to kill dissent, censor ideological foes or de-platform political opponents by deciding what is allowed on the internet.
In Nigeria, a wave of online protests engulfed social media after the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) rolled out the first draft of its Internet Code of Practice, which has similar guidelines as the new regulation from the Cyberspace Administration of China. In the Nigerian Internet Code of Practice, for instance, users who repost banned content which could be anything from “misinformation” to “blasphemy” could be punished.
In Kenya, the government has imposed a 15% withholding tax on income generated from digital content monetization. This has since caused an uproar among influencers in the East African country, many of whom see the new tax as repressive especially since content creating is not even a real job.
The latest crackdown on content creators in China might also be part of an effort to reign in on the power of social media companies and make them accountable for the content on their platform. Social media companies have also used these same laws to protect themselves from libel or any other form of responsibility for the content posted on their platforms.
This new regulation is coming barely days after the Ministry of Public Security and the Supreme People’s Court started canvassing for public opinion on the draft of a new set of guidelines that will punish online abuse. The bodies say that it was a necessary step to take, following a rising trend of cyberbullying and attacks that have, especially targeted women and children.