China’s leading current affairs and politics forum, Cat’s Eye View, has been abruptly shut down on March 30. Outsiders have recently discovered that a large number of other Chinese military self-publishers have been shut down. This is believed to be a directive from the top of the Chinese Communist Party. Many Chinese netizens have lamented the renewed tightening of speech.
In an April 8 article, Beijing-based Dovetail News said that China’s only remaining military forum, Super Military Forum, had closed its military equipment discussion section since March 23, followed by “Sina Military”, “Junwu Sublevels” and other military WeChat The public number was shut down due to “irregularities”, and even the WeChat parent company Tencent’s WeChat public number “Tengxiangtang”, which is part of QQ.com’s military channel, was not spared.
According to the report, all signs indicate that the shutdown of military self-media accounts most likely came from high-level instructions, as the Chinese Communist Party began to purge military self-media following the purge of current affairs self-media.
According to the Central News Agency, many Chinese netizens have lamented the shutdown of military self-media, saying that the authorities intended to guide public opinion to “not talk about national affairs, but only talk about the wind and the moon”. Others say it is likely that the authorities are trying to prevent leaks.
Before the military forum was blocked, Cat’s Eye View was shut down in late March. (Photo source: Internet)
In fact, the authorities have further tightened their control over media and self-media since the beginning of this year, and the scope goes far beyond the military sector.
For example, on January 29, Zhuang Rongwen, vice minister of the CPC Central Propaganda Department and director of the Internet Information Office, proposed in the national network information system to regulate the order of network communication work video conference, this year is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, the “14th Five-Year Plan” opening year, to maintain the order of network communication, to ensure that cyberspace “positive energy is abundant “, “the main theme is high” has special significance.
At this meeting, the Internet Information Office of the Communist Party of China announced that it would focus on rectifying the problems of “disrupting the order of network communication” that existed in self media, hot search lists, PUSH pop-ups and short video platforms.
After that, WeChat Public, Sohu, Baijia and other self-publishing platforms issued notices requiring public accounts to obtain “Internet News Information Service License”, otherwise “commenting on political, economic, military, diplomatic and major emergencies is prohibited”, and the self-publishing media wailed. Some people lamented, “In the future, the self-publishing profession should only belong to a very small number of people.” “Only those issued by the Communist Party can do the so-called self-publishing.” “The media should all be the mouthpiece of the Party, the media are all surnamed Party!”
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