WeChat bans clickbait, rumors, and sex

If you’re a WeChat user who likes sharing links with friends, you’d better be careful. The Tencent-owned app announced yesterday that it has a stringent new set of rules to evaluate shared content with. Breaking those rules could result in punishments ranging from an IP block on the illicit content to a permanent ban on your account.

So what kind of content is now illegal on WeChat?

1. Anything that violates the law. This includes content that could be interpreted as inciting or promoting ethnic hatred, separatism, inciting people to “subvert” the state, illegally promoting religion, or anything that’s too violent, too pornographic, or involves gambling.
2. Clickbait headlines. If the headline of the article you share doesn’t match the content, or is misleadingly enticing, you could be in trouble.
3. “Vulgar” content. According to WeChat’s statement, you can’t share anything relating to sex organs, sexual behavior, or anything else that’s vulgar, violent, or abusive. This includes posts about things like wife-swapping, sexual abuse, treatments for STDs, etc.
4. Games and quizzes. WeChat has its own games, of course, but linking to some kinds of external games and quizzes is no longer permitted.
5. Soliciting shares or follows. Any kind of link that suggests people should share or follow you (or anyone else), or somehow entices them to do so, is disallowed.
6. Rumors. Posting incorrect stories or rumors can now get you in trouble (although this was already the case to some extent).
7. Harassment, advertising, and spam. Posting anything annoyingly spamming can now bring down the banhammer.
8. Fraudulent content. No trying to con other WeChat users.

WeChat’s statement says that the harsh publishments (like permabans) will generally be reserved for cases where the circumstances are “malicious,” although it’s not clear exactly how that will be assessed.

On China’s tech news sites, users are mostly pleased but skeptical. Many users believe some kind of change is needed: “I’ve had to quit many friend circles because I can’t stand the constant barrage of stupid rumors,” wrote one commenter. But there’s also a lot of doubt that WeChat will be able to effectively practice what it is preaching here. “It’d be a wonder if they could actually do this,” wrote one Harbin-based user.

There is also a little concern about the policing of rumors, because (as one user put it) “lots of rumors end up being true.” Rumors are also often used as an excuse for deleting politically sensitive material – links about Chinese President Xi Jinping’s connection the Panama Papers, for example, would likely be deleted as rumors. But this was already the case, so whether that kind of deletion increases now that WeChat’s new rules are out depends on how harshly they’re actually going to be enforced.