Chinese authorities have ordered the country’s top Internet and technology companies to outline restrictions on their competitors posting links, despite widespread warnings from officials.
At a high-level meeting attended by some of the country’s leading companies, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology emphasized its commitment to creating a healthy Internet environment and called on companies to stop shutting down their competitors.
Many of the country’s largest Internet companies often block users from posting links from competitors on their platforms – for example, links from the Alibaba ecommerce platform Taobao cannot be posted on the Tencent messaging app WeChat.
“Legal sharing of URL links is a key requirement for Internet development,” said ministry spokesman Jao Ziguoo during the meeting.
In July, the ministry ordered an investigation into major Internet companies, but some companies did not understand or were unsure of what to do. Representatives of major technology giants, including Alibaba, Tentent, and Bitedan, who attended the meeting, pledged to open their “walled gardens” and make links to each other’s platforms.
Alibaba and Tensent said they “strongly support” and “comply with” the ministry’s directive.
Alibaba was fined ($ 2.8 billion) in April after food supply forum ele.me was found to have violated China’s anti-religious laws. China issued anti-religious directives in February to curb monopolistic behavior in the country’s Internet sector.
“Restricting access to Internet links for no apparent reason affects user experience, violates user rights, and disrupts marketing.”
Editor – Bbeck Flag.
(Header image IC)
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