China's cyberspace watchdog has strengthened the governance of the internet, with over 400,000 pieces of harmful information removed since June, the authority said on Tuesday.
They have also punished over 20,000 social media accounts and 6,500 chat group leaders over the violation of relative regulations, according to the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, which launched a rectification campaign to create a cleaner internet environment in June.
"We have taken tougher measures to clean up online harmful information, including verbal abuse between fans of different stars, rumors and attacks online, and intensified punishment for website platform operators who haven't corrected the platform's problems. The rectification has seen good results," said Sheng Ronghua, deputy head of the commission.
The internet has become a space for people to work, live, study and communicate. The construction of internet civilization plays an important role in the construction of socialist spiritual civilization and the building of China's strength in cyberspace, he said.
To address the importance of the internet environment, the first China Internet Civilization Conference will be held in Beijing on Friday.
The one-day conference, with the theme of "Gather strength for good deeds, jointly build internet civilization", will focus on building a platform for promoting China's internet civilization, exchanging experiences, showcasing achievements and learning from international internet civilizations, Sheng said.
It will contain one main forum and seven sub-forums, covering topics including online content construction, challenges and responses of internet ecological governance, internet rule of law and the internet civilization among young people.
In recent years, a series of laws and regulations on cyberspace have taken effect and the idea the internet is not a place beyond the law has taken root among the masses.
The commission recently started another campaign to rectify disorder in the operation of internet users' accounts, targeting problems including the name of the account containing illegal information, counterfeiting the number of fans of certain stars and selling online game accounts to juveniles.
Some online platforms have developed very fast in recent years, but this has led to some management problems, including content security, technical support, community rules and internal management mechanisms. Cyberspace administrations at all levels have enhanced their guidance and supervision over these problems, Sheng said.
"We will further push related platforms to keep optimizing operation rules, strengthen auditing on agenda-setting and content and lifting platforms' content quality and service level, to build a positive and healthy Internet space," he said.
