China tech crackdown: internet watchdog visits social media firm Douban to correct ‘severe online chaos’
- Douban, which has around 200 million registered users, is known as a haven for relatively liberal discussions
- The intensifying clampdown on Douban is a sign of tightened internet censorship in China
China’s internet regulator said it had deployed a special task force to the offices of popular social media platform Douban to rectify “serious online chaos”, in an escalation of Beijing’s ongoing drive to control internet content.
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said in a brief statement on Tuesday that its Beijing bureau dispatched a supervision team to station at Douban. The agency did not elaborate on what issues it was trying to resolve, or how long the team would stay.
Douban, which currently has around 200 million registered users, is known as a haven for relatively liberal online discussions, in a country where unconventional views are usually heavily censored. For years, people have flocked to the site to leave comments and ratings for films, books and pop culture content.
It is rare for China’s internet police to send on-site teams to companies. In a move last July that underscored increased regulatory pressure on the country’s internet sector, the CAC led a consortium of officials from seven ministries to enter the offices of ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing to conduct a cybersecurity review. The regulators have yet to publish the result of its investigation.
The renewed government scrutiny on Douban marks an escalation from a 1.5 million yuan (US$235,000) fine imposed on the Beijing-based company last December for “unlawful release of information”. In the same month, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ordered Douban to be removed from app stores because of data violations.
The intensifying clampdown on Douban, created in 2005 by University of California San Diego alumus Yang Bo, is a sign of tightened censorship in China, where authorities have become increasingly intolerant of online discussions, even those about subjects unrelated to politics.
Official topics on Douban generally steer away from political or social issues – such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – preferring instead to focus on lighthearted themes, including poetry, sports and personal relationships. However, group discussions and user-generated content sometimes contain subtle political dissent.