Beijing warns Sina to improve censorship

China's government has warned it will shut down one of the country's largest and most popular online news services if it does not "improve censorship".

Late on Friday, executives from Nasdaq-listed Sina, which runs China's fourth most visited website, were summoned to a meeting with the Cyberspace Administration of China and lambasted for spreading "illegal information" and "violating morality", according to a statement from CAC.

Sina was accused of not properly censoring user accounts as well as "engaging in media hype" and allowing the spread of "rumours", pornography and "messages advocating heresies", a reference to banned religious movements such as Falun Gong.

The CAC oversees the world's most sophisticated online censorship regime, which already relies heavily on self-censorship and compliance from major internet companies such as Sina, but it is rare for it to publicly reprimand one of them.

In the meeting on Friday, Sina executives promised to intensify censorship of their websites and publish more information that displayed "positive energy", the CAC said.

Sina's chairman and spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment.

With 650m users, China has the world's largest online population, but global sites such as Twitter, Google, Gmail, Facebook and Youtube are blocked in the country, making the Chinese internet more akin to a giant intranet.

Sina has previously run into trouble with its Twitter-like Sina Weibo service, which it listed on Nasdaq in the US last year.

Several high-profile Weibo bloggers boasting millions of followers each have had their accounts shut down or have been warned not to post anything that might show the ruling Communist party or its leaders in a bad light.

One famous blogger was arrested for visiting prostitutes in a widely publicised sting operation that was cited by officials as a warning to other bloggers to restrain their online comments.

Since coming to power in late 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has overseen a strict tightening of control over the media and public discourse and a tough ideological campaign against the perceived dangers of "western ideas".

In its World Press Freedom Index 2015, Reporters Without Borders ranked China 176th out of 180 countries, down one place from a year earlier.

According to the report, the only countries with a worse media environment than China's are Syria, Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea.

China established the State Internet Information Office in 2011 to tighten Party control over the internet in response to online calls for demonstrations in the country to mimic the uprisings of the Arab Spring.

The office was renamed the Cyberspace Administration of China last year, following President Xi's decision in late 2013 to establish and personally lead a special Communist party committee to oversee all matters relating to the internet.

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