The Ministry of Culture published on Thursday a notice on further supervising live streaming platforms in China, stipulating clearly for the first time that video hosts are directly responsible for their contents, and that those who are blacklisted will be banned from streaming videos nationwide.
According to the notice, live streaming platforms must spot check their streamed content on a regular basis to locate hosts who stream inappropriate information. Channels found to be violating the regulations concerned must be shut down. Regulators, including local culture administrative departments, must urge the platforms to gather relevant information of the streamers, and gather evidence to submit to the Ministry of Culture, which decides whether or how long the streamers should be blacklisted.
The first blacklist will be out before long, according to NetEase Tech.
Inappropriate contents that are forbidden to be streamed are not restricted to pornographic and violent contents, as any content relating to brutally treating others, oneself, and animals are strictly banned as well. In addition, the country’s Interim Provisions on the Administration of Internet Culture stipulated the following contents as prohibited: “demagoguery that harms social stability and national unity”, “cults” or superstitions that mislead people, defamation of others, and so on.
While individual streamers are directly responsible for the contents that they stream, live streaming platforms failing to moderate their content would be fined, temporarily closed, or even be subject to criminal liability.
A crackdown on illegal contents of live streaming has been undergoing for a while. 17, a live online video streaming app, was closed in mainland China last September for inappropriate contents, before it rebounded from the App Store ban this May with a content supervision system equipped.
(Top photo screened from Yy.com)