China Introduces New Restrictions on Live Streaming

China has further tightened its grip on the Internet by issuing tough new laws on live streaming, making it compulsory for presenters to register with their real name to avoid sabotage of national security and controversial contents, including online pornography.

The regulation by the Cyberspace Administration of China bans use of live streams to undermine national security, destabilise society, disturb social order, infringe upon others' rights and interests, or disseminate inappropriate content, including pornography, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The regulation obliges service providers to censor content and blacklist users who break the rules, prohibiting them from registering again.

The new regulation on live streaming also make it compulsory for presenters to register with their real names.

Despite periodic restrictions, China's social media being used by millions of Chinese through their mobile phones has emerged as an alternative media challenging the monopoly on the official media.

With the advent 4G and China bracing for 5G, live streaming has events and incidents of public interest have become common among the net users.

The new regulation was expected to regulate the content specially the spread of pornography.

In May this year a new regulation stipulated that live-streaming sites must monitor all their output round-the-clock to weed-out "erotic" and "suggestive" content by live streamers like banana-eating, New Express Daily reported.

It is not just fruit that's on their radar though but also wearing stockings and suspenders while hosting a live stream is now also forbidden, the paper said.

In April, the Ministry of Culture announced it was investigating a number of popular live-streaming platforms for allegedly hosting pornographic or violent content that "harms social morality".

While embracing internet revolution, specially for development of e-commerce, China closely regulate the social media on the net with firewalls blocking to references to controversial events and individuals.