China orders Tencent to clean up pornography on WeChat
- Chinese authorities met with Tencent on October 26, ordered the company to clean up the content and shut down offending accounts
Chinese authorities summoned Tencent Holdings on Friday, ordering the WeChat operator to clean up pornographic content on its accounts.
The distribution of pornographic novels and lowbrow content on WeChat’s official accounts has worsened and Tencent was ordered to remove questionable content and shut down serious offenders, according to a statement by the The Office of Combating Pornography and Illegal Publications on its website.
“Tencent has to immediately conduct self-examination and self-correction,” according to the statement.
WeChat will further strengthen its content and quality reviews, clear up vulgar content and improve the reporting mechanism, Tencent said in a statement. Tencent has blocked or closed 1,706 WeChat official accounts since yesterday, it said.
WeChat has more than 1 billion users and is the most popular social-media platform in China. The official accounts work much like homepages, with individuals and companies able to set up these pages to distribute content and add followers.
Tencent's share price dropped 3.1 per cent to HK$260.80 as of 3:42pm in Hong Kong trading, extending this year’s decline to 36 per cent. The Hang Seng Index slid 1.2 per cent.
