The booth of Sina Weibo at the ChinaJoy Expo in July 2021 Photo: cnsphoto

China's cyberspace regulator recently summoned Chinese twitter-like Sina Weibo for talks concerning the repeated display of prohibited information and content on its platform that violated law and regulations, according to the official WeChat account of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) on Tuesday.

Facing an administrative penalty of 3 million yuan ($471,300), Sina Weibo was ordered to address the flagged issues and review the behavior of responsible staff, the CAC said.

From January to November this year, the cyberspace regulator has imposed 44 penalties on Sina Weibo with associated fines totaling 14.3 million yuan.

In response to the penalty, Weibo said "it will sincerely accept criticism from the regulator, earnestly implement the rectification requirements, resolutely fulfill its responsibility, and continuously improve its internal governance measures."

It will establish a rectification team as required by the regulator, which is dedicated to addressing pornographic content and malicious marketing posted on the platform, the firm said.

Weibo went to Hong Kong Stock Exchange for a secondary listing on December 8 when its shares closed down 7 percent in the trading debut. Shares of Weibo tumbled by 8.72 percent as of press time on Tuesday.

The fine issued to Weibo is the latest move by authorities in a prolonged internet cleanup campaign in China, a joint action which includes six ministries and departments launched in June, targeting vulgar and harmful online content.

Earlier this month, the CAC ordered Chinese media review site Douban to immediately rectify and deal with serious breaches after the company repeatedly failed to conduct proper scrutiny over its content. The firm was fined 1.5 million yuan.

Global Times