Provision on the Administration of Internet User Public Account Information Services has been issued recently and would officially be implemented on February 22nd, 2021. This provision is based on four fields as entity liability for public account information service platforms and public account operators, real information identification, classification management and social supervision and administrative management, aiming to further enhance the legal supervision on Internet user public accounts and promote the healthy and orderly development for public account information services.
It is stipulated in the provision that the public account information service platform should fulfill the entity responsibility of information contents and public accounts management, and added platform entity responsibilities of ecological governance, data protection, personal information protection, intellectual property protection, credit evaluation and classification management. There are some articles newly added about those highlighted problems such as account classification registration, content classification production, real identity registration, entity qualification verification, restriction of account number, account trading, combating network rumors, account operation norm and data flow fraud. Public account operators shall establish and improve the content and account security audit mechanism, and shall not engage in illegal activities like malicious account registration, fabrication of false information, incitement for extreme emotion, plagiarism of original work, network violence, extortion, trading and account trading.
Also, there are relevant measures on managements of rule, function, act and society. Firstly, platforms shall be required to establish the relative management rules, platform conventions or service agreements of public accounts, and shall file the records to the local network information department and accept its guidance and supervision. Secondly, platforms shall standardize their recommended subscription and attention mechanism of public accounts, in any way it must not force user to subscribe or follow any other public account without the informed consent of the user. Thirdly, platforms shall not use its dominant position to interfere with the lawful and compliant operation of content operators and infringe the legitimate right and interest of users, meanwhile users shall not impersonate public account of others and shall not engage in network violence to damage other party’s reputation. Fourthly, Internet industry organizations are encouraged to conduct public reviews, promote the establishment of an authoritative mediation mechanism for multi-party participation, and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of users according to law.
Public account operators shall not perform illegal acts as:
1) registration with false identity information, or registration with name, picture or profile that does not match its true identity information;
2) malicious counterfeiting or embezzlement of information content which published by the public account of other organization or person;
3) providing Internet news information editing and publishing service without permission or beyond permission;
4) manipulation and use of multiple platform accounts, batch release of similar low-quality information or contents, generation of false data flow, creation of false public trending topic;
5) using emergency to incite extreme emotion, or implementation of network violence to damage the reputation of other person or organization, interference for normal operation of organization, affection of social harmony and stability;
6) fabricating false information, falsity of original attribute, labeling false source of information, distortion of truth or misleading the public;
7) carrying out illegal network supervision, marketing fraud and extortion by means of paid release and deletion of information so as to obtain illegal benefits;
8) illegal batch registration, hoarding or trading of public accounts;
9) producing, copying or publishing illegal information, or failing to take measures to prevent and resist the production, copy or publication of bad information;
10) other acts which is prohibited by laws and administrative regulations.
If you want to read the complete article, you can refer to the below link (in Chinese only): http://www.shanghaiinvest.com/cn/viewfile.php?id=15827
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Mr. Mike Chang (Partner)
TEL: 0086-21-68868321
Email: mikechang@shanghaiinvest.com