Media regulation in China: The bigger you grow, the harder the punch

Short-video streaming in China, projected to harvest a quarter of the country's 1.3 billion population by 2018, has become the latest target of government censorship.

From Facebook-type video streaming to livestreaming and short-video apps, the government has been trying to wrest control from industry players, citing lack of a content license required to legally broadcast online and proliferation of illegal content.

Acquiring such a license used to be relatively easy at one time. But in 2008, the government mandated all applicants must be wholly state-owned or controlled. It’s a condition almost impossible to meet – most of China’s online media companies are privately financed by domestic and foreign capital.

In terms of what’s being streamed, content providers have been castigated for pirated material, pornography, obscenity, violence, or things deemed harmful to state security. The government has loosely defined what’s “immoral” to give leeway for material it might consider inappropriate at a later date. Underage pregnancy is one example of something on the borderline: it’s not outright illegal, but could induce severe social problems.

The punishment

Clampdowns can take the form of verbal warning, leading to voluntary purging of content at one end, and suspension of services or even permanent closures at the other.

In 2008, the government shut 25 video-streaming sites and publicly warned 32 others, including industry pioneer Tudou, which later became part of Alibaba’s video unit.

By 2016, regulators started targeting livestreaming. Shanghai alone saw the closure of 14 livestreaming platforms and over 1 million broadcaster accounts.

Most recently, the removal of the “trending” session from Weibo – China’s answer to Twitter – due to its “propagation of obscenity” has undermined the firm’s revenues, someone at Weibo familiar with the matter told Caijing Magazine. “Trending” keywords are based on user searches but can also be bought by advertisers.
This is an excerpt from the article published on TechInAsia. You can read the full article here.