China Will Be the First Country Punishing Fake News
China Has Had Enough With Rumors.
News websites using social media as their primary source of information are the target of this crackdown. Government officials have officially released a statement saying that online newspapers are not to release any story taking its source from social media unless told otherwise by the Cyberspace Administration.
Why ?
Because of the number of fake stories that got the attention of a great too many people to the taste of the Party.
“All levels of the cyberspace administration must earnestly fulfill their management responsibility for internet content, strengthen supervision and investigation, severely probe and handle fake and nonfactual news,”
- While it is correct that those newspapers more often than not report falsehood in order to gain views, we cannot help to notice that the new rules will also allow the government to control not so fake but embarrassing stories about its own members.
- One of the stories was of an alleged bus fire, which never happened. But the scandals about politicians’ luxury watch (which are unaffordable with a state servant salary, even at higher levels) also spread this way.
The Chinese central power hold onto the Internet is strong. There are to be no troublemakers in the government plan for a “harmonious” society. First of the list are the western newspaper such as the Times who revealed just how rich the Chinese political elite is, and social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
In this particular case it is however a domestic case. And it is somehow hard to feel too bad to feel sorry for some of the newspaper involved. As they deliberately reported fishy stories just in order to profit from it.
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