Chinese tech giant Sina Weibo hires supervisors to censor harmful content

About 1,000 supervisors have been recruited to report on pornographic, illegal and harmful content- particularly young women's pictures if they show their legs, abdomen or cleavage

Chinese tech giant Sina Weibo has recruited 1,000 Weibo supervisors to report on “pornographic, illegal and harmful content” after China's Cyberspace Administration investigated and fined Weibo for failing to purge banned content from its social media platform.

The policy is already having adverse effects on users, particularly young women, whose photos are being labelled “pornographic” if they show a woman's leg, abdomen or cleavage. Users who are found to violate the rules may have their “social credit” scores reduced, which can limit to their ability to use the platform.

The investigation of Tencent, Baidu and Sina Weibo

The Cyberspace Administration's Beijing and Guangdong offices launched a comprehensive investigation into Chinese internet companies Tencent, Baidu and Sina Weibo on 11 August 2017, charging that their social media platforms had violated newly passed Cybersecurity Law and were not adequately managing information published by their users.

After one month of investigation, the authorities concluded on 25 September that the three had violated Article 47 of the Cybersecurity Law by hosting “information of violence and terror, false rumours, pornography, and other information that jeopardizes national security, public safety, and social order.”

Article 47 of the Cybersecurity Law requires network operators to effectively manage content published by users. In contrast to major technology companies in the United States, such as Facebook and Google, these Chinese internet giants are now obligated to proactively censor illegal content and report it to the authorities.

Accordingly, the three companies were given the “heaviest fine” based on Article 68, which states the maximum fine is up to RMB 500,000 yuan (approximately 76,000 US dollars).