11 August, 2017
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has directed its provincial offices in Beijing and Guangdong to open investigations against Chinese internet companies Tencent (0700.HK), Weibo (Nasdaq: WB), and Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) over problems related to pornographic content and fake news.
President Xi Jinping has made China's "cyber sovereignty" a top priority and has also reasserted the ruling party's role in limiting and guiding online discussion.
ACCh stated that such materials endanger nationals security, public security and the social order so that these three platforms are suspected of violating the country's cybersecurity law.
China's cyberspace watchdog has ordered a crackdown on what it calls "hazards to national security" on social media websites in an effort to tighten controls on the spread of news ahead of the country's Communist Party Congress later this year.
While WeChat and Weibo, which collectively boast over 1 billion users, did not comment on the probe, Baidu has issued a statement saying the company is willing to comply with cybersecurity laws and will "actively cooperate with government departments to rectify the issue and increase the intensity of auditing".
Shares of the Hong Kong-listed firm were in the red after the news, down nearly 5 per cent. Investors will now be waiting to see how shares of the US-listed firms react. For now, there's no word on what actions may be taken the against the guilty platforms. Sina Weibo is a platform similar to Twitter, the instant messaging application Wechat is similar to Facebook, but includes other concepts such as online payment; and Baidu Tieba works as a popular bulletin board.
WeChat and Weibo have about 940 million and 350 million monthly active users, respectively.
