China’s government has warned it will shut down one of the country’s largest and most popular online news services if it does not “improve censorship”.
Late on Friday, executives from Nasdaq-listed Sina, which runs China’s fourth most visited website, were summoned to a meeting with the Cyberspace Administration of China and lambasted for spreading “illegal information” and “violating morality”, according to a statement from CAC.
Sina was accused of not properly censoring user accounts as well as “engaging in media hype” and allowing the spread of “rumours”, pornography and “messages advocating heresies”, a reference to banned religious movements such as Falun Gong.