“Chinese Twitter” Weibo Blocks Over 10 Large Crypto-Related Accounts, Including Justin Sun’s
Chinese crypto journalist Colin Wu and Chinese crypto news outlet 8BTC have reported that the Chinese analogue of Twitter – Weibo – has again started to ban accounts of crypto influencers and companies related to crypto.
This time, over ten accounts have been blocked on this social media platform, including the account that belongs to Justin Sun – the founder and CEO of the Tron Foundation with native crypto TRX.
China Weibo has launched a new round of banned accounts. In addition to Justin Sun, more than 10 accounts involving cryptocurrencies with a total of millions of followers have been blocked. https://t.co/sR6pZCVKVn
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 19, 2021
China’s social media resumes blocking crypto accounts
A recent tweet from 8BTC mentions a “collective ban on crypto KOL” – the second one since June 5th.
On June 9, U.Today reported that Chinese search engines, including Baidu, started blocking search results for cryptocurrency exchanges – Binance, OKEx and Huobi.
Social media platforms – Weibo, etc – began doing the same with pages of crypto exchanges and accounts related to crypto businesses and crypto enthusiasts.
This came amid the Chinese crackdown on cryptocurrency mining companies that was explained by Bitcoin and other cryptos running on the Proof-of-Work protocol causing major environmental issues since most mining is done using fossil energy sources.
Arman ShirinyanChina clamps down on the Big Tech
At the moment, Chinese authorities are implementing new regulatory rules on tech giants and Internet platforms, such as Alibaba, Tencent, etc.
A draft of new rules has been issued that target “unfair competition activities”. The draft was published by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) on Tuesday and it says that authorities in provinces now are entitled to prevent Internet companies from conducting inappropriate activities in cyberspace.
That includes, the faking of traffic data and blocking links from rivalling companies.
Besides, the state is going to interfere and have a bigger say regarding the course Chinese giants will take and their crucial decisions they will make than they did before.
Arman Shirinyan
Dan Burgin
Alex Dovbnya