Reuters reports that more than 300 mobile accounts on WeChat have been suspended or permanently disabled by its parent company, Tencent Holdings, Ltd. The account suspensions were implemented to comply with new regulations imposed by the Xi administration to curb the spread of political news online:
China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd has suspended more than 300 accounts on its WeChat mobile messaging app and banned around 40 others as government restrictions on spreading political news online take effect, state media said on Friday.
Earlier this month, China imposed new rules on what kind of information can be spread via instant messaging apps as well as restrictions on accounts which can broadcast news to large numbers of followers.
Of the 357 accounts closed down by Tencent as of August 25, 46 were permanently banned while the rest were suspended, the official Xinhua news agency said on its microblog.
[…] Observers say President Xi Jinping is presiding over the worst crackdown on the internet and online censorship in China in recent memory. Xi also heads the Central Internet Security and Informatisation Leading Group, an internet security body whose remit includes building China into a cyber power, according to state media. [Source]
Read more about censorship on WeChat and Internet control under President Xi Jinping, via CDT.
