China shut down over 4,000 websites in just three months

Obviously, Beijing is not relaxing the pressure on the Internet, quite the contrary. Even if, last summer, the authorities loosened their grip on the tech giants. The Chinese regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), has just indicated that in the first three months of the year alone it has deleted 55 applications for smartphones and closed no less than 4,200 sites. This is significantly more than the 3,200 closures that had been decided during the first six months of 2022.

At the same time, the managers of more than 2,200 websites were summoned and interviewed. The opportunity, according to the regulator, to ask them to rectify content sometimes deemed inappropriate.

Encouragement to report “inappropriate” information

Among the targets of Chinese censorship are both Chinese and foreign groups. The search engine of Microsoft but also that of Baidu or even Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, have been lectured in particular. The Douyou and Duban streaming platforms have also been pinned.

If 2023 is therefore starting off with a bang for Chinese censors, the trend is likely to increase over the months. And the hunt for inappropriate content will also be entrusted to local authorities, both at the provincial level and that of certain prefectures.

A decentralization of censorship that is part of a struggle that is explicitly intended to be more and more pugnacious. In mid-April, the director of the CAC undertook to clean the Internet of any political content deemed “illegal”, as well as to safeguard and protect public opinion from information and comments that would be harmful to it.

A declaration of intent which led him in particular to encourage Internet users to report illegal information, and in particular those whose political content would call into question the “two pillars” of the Nation, an expression specific to the Communist Party to designate the president Xi Jinping and the Party Central Committee.

A specific two-month campaign, targeting social media that disseminate information that “harms the image of the Communist Party and the government” was also due to end in mid-May. Also targeted is information related to what Beijing calls “historical nihilism” and which would challenge the official version of the country’s history. This includes in particular issues related to Tibet, Taiwan or even Xinjiang and the Uyghur minority.

Support business growth

Moreover, in addition to sensitive and political information that might displease Beijing, the Chinese regulator has also undertaken to provide its share in support for the revival of the country’s economy . This, by targeting “false or inaccurate” information relating to private companies or business leaders. A problem which, according to a director of the CAC, is of great concern to the Chinese central authorities.

A campaign to raise awareness of websites must therefore be launched in order to allow them “to inspect the content and quickly remove information identified as rumors or a violation of an entrepreneur’s privacy”. The victims of such “disinformation” will also be better ***isted when they decide to lodge a complaint.