China’s internet watchdog ramps up campaign against social media misinformation, silences Shanghai talk show star after post on Russia

China’s internet regulator has kicked off a two-month campaign targeting misinformation and “illegal profit-making” across all domestic social media platforms, as Beijing continues to reinforce its control over the country’s closed cyberspace.

Internet watchdog the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said its latest initiative from March 12 aims to “purify [the] internet environment and promote social stability”, which it asserted as “an inevitable requirement for winning the online ideological battle, and maintaining national and political security”, according to the announcement sent to its local regulators nationwide.

This crackdown is especially focused on short video and live-streaming platforms, where rumours and other harmful information could be disseminated to “distort and reverse the truth and incite negative emotions”, which could “damage the image of the Communist Party and the government, and interfere with socio-economic development”.

One of those targeted by the CAC’s latest campaign was Shanghai comedian and talk show star Zhou Libo, who has been banned from posting on ByteDance-owned Chinese microblogging platform Toutiao where he has 2.93 million followers. Zhou was punished after recently suggesting in a post that China’s national rejuvenation should include an effort to take back land that Russia seized in the 19th century, referring to the Amur Annexation.