{"id":156647,"date":"2025-09-24T01:49:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T01:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/156647\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T01:49:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T01:49:13","slug":"china-internet-crackdown-bytedance-alibaba-platforms-fined-harmful-content-cited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/156647\/","title":{"rendered":"China internet crackdown: ByteDance, Alibaba platforms fined; harmful content cited"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/representational-image.jpg\" alt=\"China internet crackdown: ByteDance, Alibaba platforms fined; harmful content cited\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/> China\u2019s internet watchdog has moved against two major platforms, Bytedance owned news app Jinri Toutiao and Alibaba\u2019s internet browser company UCWeb, accusing them of spreading harmful material. The move was announced on Tuesday, a day after Beijing launched a two-month campaign to tighten control over online content.The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said on Monday it would crack down on material that fuels \u201cmalicious incitement of conflict\u201d or encourages \u201cnegative outlooks on life such as world-weariness\u201d.Authorities in Beijing already require social media firms to heavily police their platforms, keeping out anything they judge subversive, pornographic, vulgar or otherwise damaging.This month, the CAC had already penalised three well-known sites, Weibo, Kuaishou and Xiaohongshu, for what it called poor oversight of content. The regulator has not disclosed what punishment they faced.Toutiao, the news app came under fire for allowing \u201charmful content\u201d to appear on the main page of its trending searches. The CAC said the company had failed in its duty to manage information properly and in doing so had \u201cdamaged the online ecosystem\u201d. Actions taken against the firm include \u201csummoning the company for a meeting, ordering rectification within a specified time limit, issuing a warning, and strictly dealing with those responsible\u201d. No further details were released.\u201cInternet regulators will continue to focus on prominent illegal and non-compliant activities that undermine the online ecosystem,\u201d the CAC said in its statement cited by AFP.Alibaba\u2019s UCWeb also faces sanctions. The CAC accused the browser service of posting entries linked to \u201cextremely sensitive and malicious\u201d issues, citing subjects such as \u201conline violence and the privacy of minors\u201d.The two-month campaign, launched on Monday, will target a wide range of online behaviour. The regulator said the drive is designed \u201cto regulate the malicious incitement of conflict and the promotion of violence and vicious currents\u201d. It also wants to stamp out attempts to exploit trending events by \u201cforcibly associate identity, region or gender with other information, stigmatising and hyping them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s internet watchdog has moved against two major platforms, Bytedance owned news app Jinri Toutiao and Alibaba\u2019s internet&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[71623,71622,71621,1638,71625,71624,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-156647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-alibaba-ucweb-sanctions","9":"tag-bytedance-jinri-toutiao","10":"tag-china-internet-watchdog","11":"tag-internet","12":"tag-malicious-incitement-of-conflict","13":"tag-online-content-regulation-in-china","14":"tag-technology","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}