Authorities in east China’s Zhejiang Province launched the first set of regional standards in the county for livestreaming studios, strengthening industry regulation, as record fines for tax evasion issued to the nation’s livestream queen raised questions over the sector’s sustainable development.
The Zhejiang Market Supervision Administration released a live broadcast room development plan on Tuesday aiming to cultivate 200 “green” broadcast rooms in the province.
It has also issued a green broadcast room management standard in Hangzhou, effective from December 30, the first regional framework on the management of green live broadcast rooms.
The standards include “10 prohibitions” for live broadcast rooms, livestreamers and multi-channel network (MCN) organizations.
All livestreaming e-commerce platforms are required to fulfill their responsibility of full information disclosure, entry verification, inspection and monitoring in accordance with the law.
Livestreamers are required to ensure that the information release is true and lawful, and do not falsely advertise commodities and services deliberately misleading consumers.
MCN organizations are required to establish and improve the contract signing, management, training on livestreamers, and strengthen the standardization of live broadcast content during each streaming event.
The new rules come after China’s top livestreamer Huang Wei, or Viya, was fined 1.34 billion yuan ($210 million) for dodging taxes by the Hangzhou taxation authority, the State Taxation Administration announced on Monday.
Viya was found to have evaded a total of 643 million yuan in taxes and 60 million yuan of other underpayments between 2019 and 2020 by concealing her personal income along with other false tax declarations, the statement read.
A worker introduces Yixian dark tea artwork through livestream broadcasting at a studio in Yixian County, east China’s Anhui Province, July 30, 2021.Photo:Xinhua
