Beijing has had enough of all the news anchors broadcasting online, and will be cracking down hard on those that don’t toe the line.
China has been clamping down on the media under President Xi Jinping, and broadcasts on websites are the next target. The Beijing Cultural Law Enforcement Agency says it’s monitoring webcasts on popular platforms such as Sina, Youku, Baidu and others and is developing a “blacklist” of news anchors. Once they get on the blacklist, they’ll never be able to work as an anchor again, according to the agency.
Shen Rui, who heads the agency, says those broadcasting on the web are able to do so “nationwide” without any identity verification or registration. Naturally, Shen added this is “very dangerous”, particularly because drug-related, pornographic, or violent content could be shown (left unstated: anything that undermines the rule of the Communist Party).
The first blacklist will be released next month.
Recently, 20 webcast platforms including Sina, Sohu, Youku, and Baidu have jointly announced they will adhere to a new convention on webcasting, which states anchors on webcasts must go through a real-name system and all live videos need to be saved for at least 15 days, among other rules.