With the onset of Covid-19 cases in the central city ofWuhan in China, state media reports were generally ignored by people asmisinformation, according to a report published in dw.com. They saw it asuntrustworthy.
People took to social media for daily news digest fromcitizen journalists or bloggers. According to the report, the details about thevirus could not have been made public without citizen journalists and socialmedia journalists.
China has now started to restrict alternative newsplatforms on social media or internet. The annual review process that is goingto be started this year, the social media posts of journalists will come underscanner. These will be reviewed if these gel well with the political regime ornot.
Further this review process will be used to give accreditationto journalists or continue their accreditation. The announcements from"General Administration of Press and Publication " sated that it isnecessary to implement Xi Jinping's idea on propaganda and ideological work. Italso states that they want to build a team of journalists who are politicallystrong, realistic and innovative, according to a report published in dw.com.
Hiring reports without valid press accreditation facesharsh outcome while it is going to affect the industry and profession. Socialmedia is usually used by media houses in China to report issues that areotherwise restricted to report on by the censorship authorities but now thisreview process will have a lasting consequences on freedom of speech,expression and of press.
Many citizen journalists and those who post content havealready faced stringent restrictive measures. One of the bloggerZhang 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 frontof the hospitals was used by many television channels across the planet.
China had already banned using Twitter and Facebook butusers use such platforms using VPN. It is termed as massive crackdown. Morethan 50 Chinese citizens have been sentenced for using such platforms in lastthree years. They were sentenced for expressing their views in the protestmovement in Hong Kong. Zhou Shaoquing spent around nine months in prison fortelling her 300 followers on Twitter that the hospital authorities aredownplaying the number of Covid-19 cases.
So, the Chinese government is extremely sensitive aboutthe use of social media by its subjects and hence the muzzling of press is theonly option to set an example.