China’s Weibo creates team to censor soft porn after Beijing fine

Shanghai, China, Dec 14 (EFE).- Chinese microblogging site Weibo announced the creation of a work team Tuesday dedicated to “identifying and intercepting” soft porn content after receiving a warning from authorities, who have fined the company up to 44 times this year.

In a statement, China’s Cyberspace Administration said one of its senior officials had met with a Weibo representative to demand “immediate rectification” after allowing the publication of “serious contents” prohibited by national law.

“The platform must rigorously comply with its responsibilities: (…) monitor public information, reinforce the management of the information published by its users and not provide a communication platform for illegal information,” the document read.

The administration said it has imposed up to 44 fines on Weibo this year totalling 14.3 million yuan ($ 2.3 million), many of them with the maximum amount of 500,000 yuan ($ 78,500).

Weibo then published another statement in which it said it “sincerely accepts the criticism” of the regulator and promised to “apply the requirements with determination.”

The social network said it would employ “manual and automated strategies” to prevent the publication of soft porn content, and “will seriously address” the situation of “illegal accounts” that share it through the platform.

Weibo also announced an initiative to prevent the proliferation of “malicious marketing” content. EFE

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