An industry organization controlled by the Chinese government has updated a list of topics users of video-sharing apps should avoid. Crypto-related content is now among the entries along with traditional taboos in China like mocking its leadership, provoking sectarianism, and showing sex.
Clips on crypto trading, mining banned in China
The China Netcasting Services Association (CNSA) recently published a blacklist of 100 topics that online videos posted on platforms similar to Tiktok should not appear. Among them are the usual suspects like questioning the official history of China, imitating its political leaders, challenging the country’s guiding ideology of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and discussing fascism.
The “Online Short Video Content Review Standard Rules (2021)” document marks a number of other banned themes. A report by the Register points to a few of them like drug use, gambling machines, crime and gangs, violence, and mental abuse. Sexually explicit content, including that which promotes “non-mainstream views of marriage and love,” is also prohibited.
While most of these topics were part of its previous version, the list has been updated with new topics including cryptocurrency. Videos promoting decentralized digital money like bitcoin by “enticing and enticing the public to participate in virtual currency mining, trading and speculation” are now considered banned by Chinese censors.
Authorities in the People’s Republic banned crypto-related activities such as digital currency trading and capital raising through coin offerings back in 2017. However, the government did not initially interfere with bitcoin mining until earlier this year.
In May, the State Council, Beijing’s cabinet of ministers, decided to clamp down on the industry following President Xi Jinping’s pledge that China will achieve carbon neutrality over the next four decades. The government’s national offensive has forced minors to move to more friendly jurisdictions.
The CNSA ban applies to vids uploaded on platforms such as Douyin, Bytedance’s Chinese version of Tiktok, Kuaishou and other social media networks, messaging apps, and microblogging sites allowing short video-sharing like Wechat and Weibo.
As a new addition to the blacklist, cryptocurrency takes 98th place. Entry number 100, reading in English: “Other violation of laws, regulations, social public order and good customs,” could ostensibly be interpreted as effectively freeing the hands of Chinese regulators to censor nearly all published clips in line.
