SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Three popular Chinese online video services have been temporarily shut down. They will likely reappear with "beefed-up oversight":
Beijing has shut down online video services of three popular Chinese media sites in a swift action that unleashed financial shockwaves and posed a firm warning to the country's online video industry: clean up, or close down.
China's internet shares tumbled after news of the unusually harsh clamp down spread, with Weibo Corp's down 6.1 percent, while SINA Corp, which has a stake in Weibo, fell 4.8 percent. That amounted to a combined $1.3 billion knock to the market value of both companies.
The Twitter-like service Sina Weibo, popular online video site ACFUN and news portal iFeng.com will have to stop video streaming services that violate the country's regulations, the TV and film watchdog said on Thursday.
"This will provide a clean and clear Internet space for the wide number of online users," the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television said in a brief statement on its website.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Saturday June 24 2017, @02:55AM (2 children)
One wonders why anyone would bother running an Internet business that deals with any kind of speech in China. It's so easy to get shut down and so easy for company officials to be locked up in prison or worse. The US has its own problems and the government has its own problems with draconian policies and procedures, not to mention an corrupt and incompetent asshole like Trump as president, but the First Amendment is why we are free to say what we want about any government in this forum. I suspect the Chinese government would not give us as much latitude.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Saturday June 24 2017, @03:29AM
You can say the same thing about driving a car. If you drive like a maniac, you can get shut down or locked up in prison. But if you toe the line, you will be perfectly fine.
I can't say what prompted the government to hit them with such a large clue stick, but, as others already mentioned, this is just to remind the businesses that they are treading on thin ice. Fear is a necessary part of forced compliance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 25 2017, @11:48AM
Maybe the largest potential consumer base in the world. Hundreds of millions of middle class customers with rising incomes and standards of living. All looking to spend their entertainment dollars.
These people bothered, http://www.chinawhisper.com/the-chinas-10-richest-internet-billionaires/ [chinawhisper.com] seemed to work out ok for them.