With the onset of Covid-19 cases in the central city of Wuhan in China, state media reports were generally ignored by people as misinformation, according to a report published in dw.com. They saw it as untrustworthy.
People took to social media for daily news digest from citizen journalists or bloggers. According to the report, the details about the virus could not have been made public without citizen journalists and social media journalists.
China has now started to restrict alternative news platforms on social media or internet. The annual review process that is going to be started this year, the social media posts of journalists will come under scanner. These will be reviewed if these gel well with the political regime or not.
Further this review process will be used to give accreditation to journalists or continue their accreditation. The announcements from "General Administration of Press and Publication " sated that it is necessary to implement Xi Jinping's idea on propaganda and ideological work. It also states that they want to build a team of journalists who are politically strong, realistic and innovative, according to a report published in dw.com.
Hiring reports without valid press accreditation faces harsh outcome while it is going to affect the industry and profession. Social media is usually used by media houses in China to report issues that are otherwise restricted to report on by the censorship authorities but now this review process will have a lasting consequences on freedom of speech, expression and of press.
Many citizen journalists and those who post content have already faced stringent restrictive measures. One of the blogger Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years in prison. According to the report, there is no trace of Fang Bin whose reporting on the bodies piled up in front of the hospitals was used by many television channels across the planet.
China had already banned using Twitter and Facebook but users use such platforms using VPN. It is termed as massive crackdown. More than 50 Chinese citizens have been sentenced for using such platforms in last three years. They were sentenced for expressing their views in the protest movement in Hong Kong. Zhou Shaoquing spent around nine months in prison for telling her 300 followers on Twitter that the hospital authorities are downplaying the number of Covid-19 cases.
So, the Chinese government is extremely sensitive about the use of social media by its subjects and hence the muzzling of press is the only option to set an example.