简体中文
Chinese video applications Kuaishou and Huoshan quietly retreated from Android app store on Thursday for increasing public criticism on their failure to censor illegal content, including features of teenage mothers and advertisements for fake products.
Kuaishou and Huoshan, two of the most popular short video platforms in China, were exposed and criticized last Sunday by state media for allowing teenage girls below the legal age for marriage to upload videos showing off themselves being pregnant, and harmful advertising videos teaching users how to apply cosmetic medical products, most of which, if not all, came from unreliable sources.
China’s supervisory institution for media and entertainment sector, the State Radio and Television Administration, ordered related companies to start cleaning up their sites and removing all “vulgar, violent, bloody, sexual and harmful” content in a statement released on Wednesday.
Before the government’s intervention, public discontent has spread on social media as Chinese netizens expressed their concerns for the teenage mothers. Some said that they totally cannot understand nor accept the “irresponsible” act of “giving birth to a child when you yourself are a child.” Others complained about how those “brainless” videos going viral has a bad influence on the society, especially children, who “once got used to those poisoning stuff, may be wiped out the ability to tell right from wrong.”
The two companies had already taken down relevant videos and issued apologies to the public, saying that it is their responsibility to run checks and pledged to prevent such content from reappearing.
(CGTN)
