China Closes Military Related Self-Media Accounts to Prevent Security Leaks
Chinese authorities recently shut down a number of social media accounts belonging to self-media enthusiasts who focus on the military. Analysts believe Beijing is trying to prevent national security leaks amid escalating tensions in the Indo-Pacific.
China’s popular military forum “Super Base Camp” announced it will permanently close four sections discussing military equipment on March 23, including those related to the navy, air force, ground forces, and new concept weapons. Subsequently, WeChat public accounts such as “Sina Military, Crazy Warfare Show,” and Tencent “Military Lecture Hall” were all closed. On March 30, a well-known political and current affairs forum “Cat Eye Observer” was also shut down.
The Clubhouse Affair: A Stark Reminder of China’s Information Isolation
A brief opening on an audio conversation app allowed Chinese users to speak freely with the outside world.
February 22, 2021
A man stands near an advertisement for Huawei’s Honor brand 5G phones in Beijing on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020.
Credit: AP Photo/Ng Han Guan
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Chinese government censorship focuses in large part on stopping people in China from accessing independent reports about events in their own country. But another major goal of the censorship apparatus is to restrict or distort information about the rest of the world, and to isolate Chinese citizens from conversations with outsiders – especially Chinese speakers in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the diaspora who are critical of the regime in Beijing.
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In Hong Kong, the first blocking of a website on the grounds of national security and a policy change on the approval of internet domains have triggered fresh concerns over freedom of access to information – as well as the city’s status as a regional telecommunications hub.
On January 14, Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) admitted to blocking HKChronicles – a website formed in response to the 2019 pro-democracy protests that shared anti-government content and personal information on police officers – after users noticed it was unreachable last week. A spokesman for HKBN told Reuters that access was disabled on January 13 in compliance with the National Security Law (NSL), marking the first time authorities have censored a website under the law since it came into effect in June.