A popular Chinese financial news site, wallstreetcn.com, said it has been shut down to undergo “rectification” amid a wider crackdown by the Chinese authorities on Web sites and news providers.
The move comes just days after Beijing blocked a new batch of foreign news Web sites, including the Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper, according to those outlets.
A swath of social media accounts known for publishing news and commentary on current events appear to have been suspended.
Wallstreetcn.com said online on Monday night that its Web site and app had been taken down following a request from the authorities.
It did not provide any details about what rules it might have broken, but promised to “carry out the requirements of the rectification in strict accordance with related laws and regulations.”
Internet regulator Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The Chinese Communist Party has long policed news content in print and online, and employs an army of censors to scrub sensitive information from the Web.
The party is particularly jittery this year with a string of sensitive anniversaries and heightened tension with the US over trade.
Wallstreetcn.com “was very powerful and provided a lot of ideas for financiers,” an investment banker and regular reader based in Shanghai who declined to be identified by name due to the sensitivity of the case.
The banker said wallstreetcn.com had helped make Chinese markets more transparent and was also a key conduit of information for small and medium-sized investors.
“I respect its courage and determination,” the banker said. “I hope it gets back online ASAP. I’m waiting for it.”
While a growing number of foreign news sites have been rendered inaccessible inside the so-called “Great Firewall” of China, the party has also tightened its grip over domestic news providers, compelling them to hew more closely to party lines.
The South China Morning Post reported that wallstreetcn.com was closed because it was deemed to have violated China’s two-year-old cybersecurity law, which rights groups have assailed as detrimental to freedom of speech.
In March, Wallstreetcn.com was fined by the CAC for illegally posting news without a license and “disrupting the order of online information distribution.”
It was unclear if the suspension of service was related.
Wallstreetcn.com published rolling Chinese-language headlines of breaking financial, business and economic news from around the world, and also carried commentaries and analyses.
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