Wen Tao, who until last year was a reporter for “Serious Reporting” at Phoenix, one of the news features shut down by the new edict, said the news portals had played a cat-and-mouse game with the government internet censors in recent years, pushing the boundaries of censorship by publishing material without submitting it for approval and waiting to see if it was taken down by the authorities.
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The Cyberspace Administration of China banned the companies, including Sohu.com, Sina Corp and Net Ease Inc on Friday, telling them to cease their “current affairs news”, according to reports from Chinese media, as reported by Bloomberg.
President Xi Jinping’s 2016 crusade against free news reporting has proved more than controversial, not least in the west; early in March the posting of a letter on state-endorsed website Wujie News calling for Jinping’s resignation led to the detention of 20 people, including columnist Jia Jia.
The news sites are run by China’s biggest internet companies, which also operate social media platforms and produce some of the country’s most popular online games.
“It is forbidden to use hearsay to create news or use conjecture and imagination to distort the facts”, the regulator reportedly said, “All levels of the cyberspace administration must earnestly fulfill their management responsibility for internet content, strengthen supervision and investigation, severely probe and handle fake and unfactual news”.
The new ban adds to China’s internet crackdown.
Lately the Chinese authorities have been discussing with the online media organizations to allow members of the government join their boards and own a small stake.
A Sohu spokeswoman declined to comment.
The change in the guidelines on original reporting also comes weeks after China replaced its chief Internet regulator. In return, they would get a licence to provide news on a daily basis.
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China has tightened controls on online communications in recent years, BBC reported.
