Tightening government control over Christian online activity continued in China on 9 January with a ban on uploading short videos to the internet that violate “national religious policies”.
Any short videos that authorities view as promoting “religious extremism” are now officially outlawed and authorities warned that websites hosting non-compliant media will be shut down.
The government-backed China Netcasting Services Association (CNSA) published a list of banned subject matter on its official website under the headings Regulations on Administration of Online Short Video Platforms and General Rules for Reviewing Netcasting Content.
In a section on religion, one rule says that censors will cut any content that "inappropriately" compared different religious denominations, according to China’s official news agency.
The regulations also stipulate that short-video production agencies should “self-censor” content before broadcasting and that editors must be officially trained and “very politically attuned”.
In April 2018, online Bible sales were banned in China. There are also concerns that a new artificial intelligence-driven “social credit” scoring system , tested in major Chinese cities since 2017, may lead to greater suppression of Christians, and other minorities, deemed to demonstrate “dissent”.
