China has begun a two-month campaign to crack down on commercial platforms and social media accounts that post finance-related information that is deemed harmful to its economy.
And in a further sign that Beijing is serious about curbing the power of its internet giants, it has been reported that work is nearing completion on a state-run cloud platform, where public entities now using private-sector providers could be required to store their data.
The campaign will focus on rectifying violations including those that “maliciously” bad-mouth China’s financial markets and falsely interpret domestic policies and economic data, the Cyberspace Administration of China said in a statement late Friday.
Those who republish foreign media reports or commentaries that falsely interpret domestic financial topics “without taking a stance or making a judgement” will also be targeted, it added.
The move is aimed at cultivating a “benign” online environment for public opinion that can facilitate “sustainable and healthy development” of China’s economy and its society, according to the statement.
The country’s top social media platforms, Wechat, Douyin, Sina Weibo and Kuaishou, said on Saturday they would begin to rectify irregular practices of “self-media” accounts that publish financial information, the state-run English-language media outlet Global Times reported.
The term “self-media” is mostly used on Chinese social media to describe independently operated accounts that produce original content but are not officially registered with the authorities.
Wechat said in a statement on Saturday that from now until Oct 26, it would investigate and shut down financial self-media accounts that “badmouth the financial market” and “blackmail and spread rumours”.
Sina Weibo, Douyin and Kuaishou also released similar statements on Saturday, the Global Times reported.
The latest campaign follows a draft proposal issued earlier Friday by the country’s cyberspace regulator to regulate algorithms that technology firms use to recommend videos and other content.
Commercial websites and platforms will be ordered to “clean up” financial information posts and close accounts deemed in violation, under the supervision of authorities including the cyberspace administrator, the finance ministry, the central bank as well as securities, banking and insurance regulators.
In a related development, the city of Tianjin has asked municipally controlled companies to migrate their data to a state-backed cloud system by next year, according to a document seen by Reuters.
Many of the companies are now using cloud services operated by private-sector operators including Huawei, Alibaba and Tencent.
The push by Tianjin, a city of roughly 14 million people south of Beijing, comes as authorities tighten controls on how companies store and manage the vast troves of data they collect.
The Tianjin State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), which oversees local government-backed companies, said in the document dated Aug 12 that it was following instructions given by the State Council.
It was not immediately clear whether other provinces were adopting similar measures.
Companies hosting their data on third-party managed cloud platforms will need to move to a government-run cloud that it called guoziyun, that translates as “state asset cloud”, within two months of the expiration of their current contracts, the document said.
The Tianjin SASAC, Huawei, Alibaba and Tencent did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
All data should be moved by Sept 30, 2022, the document said, adding that preparatory work on the new cloud service would be completed by the end of August.
“As of today, all companies should not sign new contracts with third-party cloud platforms, or continue cloud resource rental agreements,” the document said.