Media

China targets foreign and ‘unauthorised’ media in extended crackdown

Published

2 years ago

February 16, 2023

Beijing will extend a crackdown on journalists and news outlets operating unregistered on the Chinese mainland, its latest effort to “clean up” online content and unsanctioned information.

The campaign – which began in 2022 and whose targets include overseas media and “unauthorised internet media” – has “made new progress” and the Central Propaganda Department will continue with it this year, state news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday.

China has an extensive and sophisticated system in place to control online information, and the government has also imposed strict licensing requirements for reporting and broadcasting.

As part of the latest campaign, Beijing will crack down on those who blackmail businesses with news reports, pretend to be reporters, and release “fake news” – especially content related to the ruling Communist Party and government policies, the report said.

Media outlets will be under scrutiny and those that publish “fake news”, engage in illegal activities or that were established without authorisation will be shut down.

Overseas outlets will be a focus of the campaign, and according to Xinhua, “organisations and media personnel that illegally conduct activities in the mainland in the name of foreign media” will be punished.

“In the past year, we have punished … commercial websites, internet organisations and public accounts that illegally reported news, cleaned up fake media, and punished organisations and media personnel that published news for profit,” the report said.

“We have effectively maintained order in news dissemination, actively safeguarded the rights and interests of the public, and safeguarded our ideological security.”

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The campaign is the latest push to clean up content on the Chinese internet, especially content from foreign media and social media. The government has also moved to tighten controls in the past few years amid a rise in citizen journalism.

Self-employed reporters cannot be accredited by the National Press and Publication Administration, which administers tests and grants the press credentials required to work as a journalist in China.

Unaccredited reporters can face legal repercussions and possibly even criminal charges. Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years in prison in Shanghai at the end of 2020 for her reporting on the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan. She was charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – a catch-all term often used in China to silence dissent.

There have also been cases of businesses being blackmailed by public accounts on WeChat with the threat of “negative reports”. In one case, the account Xian Land was banned from the social media platform over accusations it had blackmailed property developers, according to a May 2021 statement from the Shaanxi provincial cyberspace administration.