China’s Weibo, Douyin delete thousands of posts over abuse of athletes

Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, has since Feb 6 taken action against roughly 2,300 user accounts and deleted over 73,000 posts that were offensive to athletes or “illegal”, based on Reuters calculations on multiple statements posted on its official “Weibo administrator” account. — Reuters

SHANGHAI: China’s largest social media platforms including Weibo and Douyin said they have deleted tens of thousands of posts for abusing athletes and spreading rumours on the Winter Olympics, in an effort to clean-up “illegal” chatter around the Games.

Chinese authorities stringently censor any content that they believe violates “core socialist values” and in recent months have ordered its tech companies to further crack down on online chatter or content pertaining to rumours or what could be considered vulgar.