China Bans News Based on Social Media

When it comes to your news, you can find out the latest from anywhere these days. From a text from a friend to finding it on your favourite technology site, you will find out massive amounts of information on an everyday basis. With the number of people on social media, it has become an informal (and sometimes less than trustworthy) source of information for thousands, that is unless you’re in China. The latest piece of information from the Cyberspace Administration of China has outright made it so that news based on social media is banned.

The latest message from the Cyberspace Administration of China (known mostly for their internet censorship) has stated that “it is forbidden to use hearsay to create news or use conjecture and imagination to distort the facts”.

This means that if you find some amazing news online posted by a friend, Chinese news outlets won’t be able to write up the information until it’s present on another site. This also means that anyone posting an article in China has to link to their sources, much like you should anyway when talking about something you want to be accepted as fact, but could leave stories hanging in limbo until they are considered “fact”, leaving rumours about the next generation of console or technology lingering in cyberspace.