China's top cyber authority removed nearly 10,000 self-media accounts on Monday in one of its largest internet purification campaigns. Social media platform such as Weibo and WeChat followed the lead and vowed to remove politically harmful and pornographic content. File photo: VCG

According to the official WeChat account of Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) Thursday, in order to effectively solve prominent problems in Quora-like knowledge channels, which allow users to ask and answer questions, and strengthen standardized management, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang and four other provinces and cities have been carrying out a centralized special rectification since September.

According to the announcement, the rectification focuses on the issues of setting topics, poor-quality knowledge published on the site and the qualification of so-called experts. 

It also ordered 20 key knowledge exchange platforms, including Zhihu, a question-and-answer website, Douban, a Chinese social networking service website, Knowledge Planet, a connection tool for content creators and fans, and Twitter-like social media platform Weibo to carry out self-examination and self-correction. 

In September, the CAC announced that there was a large amount of undesirable information and actions that induced minors to attempt to boost celebrity popularity, spend large amounts of money, and incite juvenile fan groups to abuse each other on six social media platforms including Weibo, Douban and Douyin.

On September 11, discussion groups such as chiguaren, babysheep, and Doubanlacai were closed for rectification for 30 days. After investigation, these fan-based discussion groups were using the so-called secret information from the entertainment industry to induce minors to chase celebrities and attack other stars online for resource competition.

Weavi, a writing community that allows writers to create content freely and connect with readers directly, was confirmed to have been spreading obscene novels in September.

"There are many hidden accounts on WeChat, Toutiao, a Chinese news and information content platform, and Bilibili, a Chinese YouTube-like video sharing website that are spreading historical nihilism," one netizen commented.

"For example, the WeChat account named 'History of cold weapons' assumes that if Timur had attacked China during the Ming Dynasty's Yongle reign, China would not be its rival, depicting history with typical historical nihilism and making every effort to smear Chinese history," the netizen added.

Quora, the pioneer of the question-and-answer community, also has long been criticized by its share of ideas that involve discrimination. For example, questions like "Should overweight people pay a "fat tax" to cover health care costs?" and "How can I stop feeling uncomfortable and even sick when I get really close to fat people?" are common on this knowledge sharing website.

During the rectification period, the relevant platforms should consciously accept social supervision, issue announcements in prominent places, and report to local information departments in a timely manner.

Experts said that in the context of high-speed development of the Internet, the knowledge exchange channels such as Quora, Zhihu and Douban solve the public's need for knowledge seeking to a certain extent, but there are still many problems in content security management, functional operation rules and other aspects, and the risk of disorderly development of the industry is still high.

Global Times