The Cyberspace Administration of China has warned online media not to use stories found on social networks as the basis of news reports without first asking permission from the authorities.
Chinese government says this is an attempt to stop the spread of false news, however, critics report that this is obviously another move by the government to control public opinion.
According to The New York Times, the Cyberspace Administration of China issued a statement saying “It is strictly forbidden for websites not to specify or to falsify news sources and to use hearsay to create news or use conjecture and imagination to distort the facts, and that they plan to punish more news outlets and websites that “directly as news reports unverified content found on online platforms such as social media.”
And according to the South China Morning Post, online outlets must get approval from the government before reporting news found on social media. The Cyberspace Administration statement said that the agency had punished multiple Chinese news websites, but didn’t give any details about how exactly these outlets were punished.
The latest crackdown on Internet media comes just days after Xu Lin, formerly the deputy head of the Cyberspace Administration of China, replaced his boss, Lu Wei, as the guardian of China’s online world.
male@ugchristiannews.com
