China Proposes Tougher Social Media Rules
China’s internet watchdog, the Cyberspace Administration of China, issued a document that proposes to modify the rules currently in effect concerning the public use of social media. The proposed rules tighten the censorship that already limits Chinese social media platforms as to the type of commentary that users are allowed to post. Under the new rules, social media platforms would be the responsible party for reviewing all comments and messages posted during live streaming, regardless of whether they have been tagged by censors, and such reviews would have to be done before they are posted, which would include far more posts than are currently reviewed by such platform moderators. This would force platforms to vastly increase staff in order to review all posts, comments, and discussions.
The rules would also force social media platforms to establish a system that ‘protects each user’s personal information’, essentially a list of actual user names and information that would identify all on-line posters, which would be used by the platform to report any ‘unlawful and negative information’ to the government, and in many cases be able to delete or modify posts or a user account based on existing rules. User’s would be required to sign an agreement that holds them responsible for not only their own comments, but those of others that respond to their posts, both text and video.
While the new rules are still in a proposal form, and no date was given for their implementation, it is expected that they will be instituted this year, putting even more of a burden on social media platforms and instilling fear of government retribution at the user level. That said, much will depend on how strictly those rules are enforced, despite the threat of spot checks and examinations of how the social media platforms will be reviewing such a massive amount of information on a real-time basis. It is hard to imagine how social media platforms will respond to these potential mandates given the cost of building out the necessary infrastructure needed to make such changes, but it will certainly have a dampening effect on what gets posted on Chinese social media regardless of what the platforms do.
The rules would also force social media platforms to establish a system that ‘protects each user’s personal information’, essentially a list of actual user names and information that would identify all on-line posters, which would be used by the platform to report any ‘unlawful and negative information’ to the government, and in many cases be able to delete or modify posts or a user account based on existing rules. User’s would be required to sign an agreement that holds them responsible for not only their own comments, but those of others that respond to their posts, both text and video.
While the new rules are still in a proposal form, and no date was given for their implementation, it is expected that they will be instituted this year, putting even more of a burden on social media platforms and instilling fear of government retribution at the user level. That said, much will depend on how strictly those rules are enforced, despite the threat of spot checks and examinations of how the social media platforms will be reviewing such a massive amount of information on a real-time basis. It is hard to imagine how social media platforms will respond to these potential mandates given the cost of building out the necessary infrastructure needed to make such changes, but it will certainly have a dampening effect on what gets posted on Chinese social media regardless of what the platforms do.
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