By Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING, Dec 3 (Reuters) – The Shanghai branch of China’s cyberspace regulator said on Tuesday that it removed thousands of online posts for “doom-mongering the real estate market and distorting interpretations of housing policies”, amid a prolonged property slump.
Over 40,000 posts on social media platforms including the Instagram-like RedNote and video-sharing platform Bilibili were removed since November 14, when the Cyberspace Administration of China branch in Shanghai launched the crackdown, along with the financial hub’s housing bureau and internet police.
A prolonged property downturn since 2021, marked by many developers failing to repay debt and complete presold homes, has weighed on consumer confidence and sapped household spending. Chinese policymakers have struggled to revive the flailing market.
The weeks-long crackdown in Shanghai also led to penalties for over 70,000 real estate accounts and 1,200 livestream rooms, the city’s CAC branch said in a post published on Tuesday on its official WeChat account.
Under President Xi Jinping, political dissent has been all but extinguished within the so-called “Great Firewall” restricting China’s internet. Beijing’s army of online censors have instead in recent years clamped down on criticism about the Chinese economy and its slower growth since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The latest crackdown also highlights authorities’ fears that online expressions of panic or discontent about the struggling property sector could lead to broader criticism of the government.
Xi, speaking last week at a study session of the Politburo, one of the ruling Communist Party’s decision-making bodies, said that authorities should “dare to draw the sword” to cut off profit and industry networks behind online misconduct.
The Chinese leader added that artificial intelligence should be used to strengthen cyberspace governance. Shanghai CAC said on Tuesday that it targeted some accounts for passing off AI-generated property pictures as authentic.
(Reporting by Eduardo BaptistaEditing by Peter Graff)
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