Key points
- China’s Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) penalized ByteDance’s Toutiao and Alibaba’s UCWeb for content violations.
- The penalties include disciplinary actions against responsible personnel.
- The crackdown is part of a wider campaign to create a “clean and healthy” cyberspace.
- The CAC cited harmful content and promotion of non-authoritative sources as reasons for the penalties.
China’s internet regulator is intensifying its crackdown on online content, with ByteDance’s news platform Toutiao and Alibaba’s UCWeb the latest targets. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) announced penalties against both companies on Tuesday, citing violations that disrupted the online ecosystem.
The CAC’s statements specified “strict disciplinary actions against responsible personnel,” highlighting the severity of the infractions. This move is the latest in a series of actions taken by the CAC as part of a two-month campaign to curb online content deemed to promote violence, hostility, or negativity.
The CAC accused Toutiao of allowing harmful content to appear on its trending topics and other sections. UCWeb, on the other hand, faced penalties for allowing non-authoritative sources and non-mainstream media to dominate its trending topics with content related to sensitive and malicious events, including issues such as cyberbullying and the privacy of minors.
Both statements concluded with a declaration of the CAC’s commitment to using “the ‘sharp sword’ of online law enforcement” to maintain a “clean and healthy cyberspace.”
This latest action follows a similar crackdown last week targeting major platforms like Kuaishou, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu. The increased scrutiny comes amidst concerns over negative sentiment fueled by economic challenges and high youth unemployment in China.
This ongoing campaign reflects the Chinese government’s long-standing goal of controlling online narratives and promoting positive portrayals of the ruling Communist Party and its socialist values.
The actions against Toutiao and UCWeb are not isolated incidents. They form part of a broader trend of increased regulatory scrutiny on China’s private sector. On Tuesday, China’s market regulator summoned Huolala, a cargo service platform, for suspected anti-monopoly law violations and launched an investigation into Kuaigou, an e-commerce platform under Kuaishou, for potential e-commerce law violations.
These actions underscore the increasingly stringent regulatory environment in which tech companies operating within China must operate.
