In the latest notice by China’s Cyber Administration Office, the country’s top cyberspace regulator announced requirements for push notifications of smartphone applications, including banning malicious hyping of sensitive events and distorting content.
In the consultation draft published on Wednesday, the top cyberspace regulator requires apps to stop repeatedly pushing and hyping sensitive social events within a short period of time, including depicting details of vicious cases, disasters or accidents to cause social panic.
The notice stresses that the push notification service should comply with laws and regulations and adhere to the right standards of public opinion guidance and value orientation.
“The push notification service should promote core socialist values with quality content to develop a positive and healthy cyberspace culture,” the notice said.
The office also stated that push notifications should not contain illegal and harmful information, especially the hype of gossip, extravagant behavior and other content contrary to public order and morality.
Apps shall not repeatedly push news stories of a topic from the past and engage in malicious hyping.
An app must not push news notifications without obtaining an internet news information license. All news notifications shall not exceed the scope of reproduction or distort the original meaning of the title and content.
Apps shall make sure the source of their push notifications is traceable and the information is true, objective and comprehensive. All push notifications shall be manually reviewed.
The apps are also required to avoid setting up algorithmic models to induce users to indulge and over-consume and stop pushing information that may affect the physical and mental health of underage users.
In terms of advertising, notification ads should be prominently marked as “advertisement” and ensure that they can be closed with a single click.
This draft is currently open for comments from the public for two weeks.
Wednesday’s notice is another step to regulate push notifications by the top cyberspace regulator. In August 2021, the Cyber Administration Office of China launched a special rectification drive on the content of push notifications as part of its “Clear and Bright” campaign to safeguard the online environment.
At a news conference in August, a spokesman for the office said that for a while, the operators of some apps have been unilaterally pursuing commercial interests and disturbing order with their push notification service, including disseminating distorted interpretations of major policies, vulgar and frightening information and abuse of personalized recommendations among other actions.
File Photo:VCG
