Sina suspends apps for a month after reprimand by Beijing regulator for failure to moderate content

Chinese internet major Sina Corp has voluntarily suspended its flagship news app and other products after it was summoned by China’s internet authority for not doing a good enough job to moderate unsuitable content.

The Beijing Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission said in a post on its official WeChat account on Wednesday that Sina had violated the country’s internet regulations by spreading untrue and vulgar information, and for being a “bad influence” on public opinion.

The regulator, citing an unnamed Sina executive, said the company would suspend its desktop-based Sina blog platform and remove its Sina News app and Sina Blog app for a month to make rectifications, effective from 3pm on Wednesday. The suspension would be one of the longest in China’s internet history for rectification purposes.

The share price of the Nasdaq-listed Sina dropped nearly 6 per cent to US$60 in pre-market trading on Wednesday.

Under Chinese President Xi Jinping the ruling Communist Party has tightened its grip on the internet and there has been an ongoing drive to crack down on content deemed unsuitable by the authorities, including pornography, gambling, fake news and political dissent. This has been intensified amid the growing popularity of new social media platforms such as live-streaming, short videos and microblogs.

Sina also runs the Twitter-like Weibo, which is one of the biggest social media platforms in China. The regulator’s statement did not mention Weibo.