China to roll out blacklist for paid video streamers, and stricter restrictions for regular users

A couple of weeks ago, we learned that virtually all of China’s independent video streaming platforms were in hot water with authorities. Those sites are still under investigation, but meanwhile, China’s mainstream tech companies with streaming video platforms – Baidu, Sina, Youku (now owned by Alibaba), Sohu etc. – have agreed to follow a restrictive new set of streaming guidelines.

Some of those restrictions – like the requirement that sites keep all live-streamed video on file for at least 15 days – are already known. But now, an internet enforcement team leader named Shen Rui at the Beijing Cultural Enforcement group has revealed additional details of the agreement. Among them:

• Blacklist: There will be a blacklist for hired streamers, and every company party to the agreement has agreed not to hire any streamer whose name appears on the blacklist. Beijing authorities will release the first group of blacklisted names next month. (Regular users, it seems, may just be account-banned rather than blacklisted).
• UGC restrictions: Any users who want to live stream will need to register their real identities with the company before a stream can be initiated.

Since this agreement is with Beijing Cultural authorities, its signatories include only internet companies headquartered in Beijing, meaning that these restrictions won’t immediately apply on platforms like Tencent’s (since Tencent is based in Shenzhen). But in the long run, this is probably a preview of what will become national policy whenever the Ministry of Culture gets done slapping around independent live streaming platforms and starts setting up a national regulatory framework.

And although independent platforms aren’t currently a part of this agreement, it’s likely that we’ll see them held to rules like this in the long run, too – assuming they aren’t shut down entirely after the Ministry’s investigation concludes.