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Celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in June 2021
Photo: THOMAS PETER / REUTERS
China wants to put the internet on the curb more.
The promotion of a "civilized" Internet must be stepped up, it said in a report by the state news agency Xinhua on Tuesday, citing guidelines from the State Council.
To this end, the supervision of news sites and online platforms should be strengthened.
These providers should be encouraged to promote basic socialist values.
Cyberspace must be used to highlight the achievements of the Communist Party.
At the same time, young people should be helped to use the Internet “correctly” and “safely”.
The enemy of these new efforts is "historical nihilism," which is defined as an attempt to challenge the party's leading role or the "inevitability" of Chinese socialism, reports Xinhua.
Instead, »positive moral« values should be promoted.
Streaming is monitored and computer games are restricted
In order to enforce these requirements, the authorities want to monitor live streaming more closely, for example.
The government has started a regulatory offensive against various industries in the past few weeks.
The National Radio and Television Authority (NRTA), for example, instructed broadcasters to exclude artists with “incorrect political positions” from programs and to cultivate a “patriotic atmosphere”.
This is intended to strengthen control over the economy and society after years of rapid growth.
In the past week, manufacturers of computer games were asked to refrain from "unmanly" presentations.
Several Internet companies in the country have been fined heavily over the past few months for their business practices.
The "Financial Times" meanwhile reports on a strategy to prevent Chinese citizens from visiting foreign websites.
Government agencies used an app that is actually supposed to prevent fraud and the installation of malware in order to control the flow of information from users.
The newspaper quotes several users who were approached by the police after visiting Western finance portals - including the US service Bloomberg.
The app, which is currently installed on 200 million smartphones, therefore requires extensive rights that enable it, among other things, to monitor phone calls and SMS.
tmk / Reuters
