China threatens to close down Sina Corp’s internet news service

13 Apr 2015

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China has threatened to close down the internet news services of Sina Corp, which also owned the country's biggest microblogging site, if it failed to improve censorship of illegal content in the wake of ''massive'' numbers of public complaints against it.

The owner of the Chinese equivalent of Twitter called Sina Weibo was summoned by the internet regulator Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) to a meeting.

According to state-run Xinhua news agency, the meeting was held over ''massive numbers of public complaints about its law violations.''

Since the start of the year, the administration had received 6,038 complaints about Sina, more than any other web portal.

According to the administration, the reports indicated that Sina had spread illegal information related to rumours, violence and terrorism, pornography, swindling, advocation of heresies and has distorted news facts, violated morality and engaged in media hype.

Sina had also published some false news due to time pressure.

Sina's censorship of user accounts had been poor, undermining online order and damaging public interests, the CAC added.

Sina has been asked by the government to correct the oversights and strengthen internal management. In the event Sina failed to meet these requirements, the firm would be ''seriously'' punished, with possible measures, including a complete shutdown of its internet news services.

Sina's leaders promised they would intensify censorship and publish more information with ''positive energy'', according to the Xinhua report. Sina Weibo is a social media pioneer in China with an online population that stood at 648 million last year.

The burgeoning social media over the past few years had posed a direct challenge to the monopoly of the official media in the country.

Sina Weibo, which is like a Chinese version of Twitter, is used by over 300 million Chinese, which had prompted the government to bring about detailed rules to regulate the content.

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