Baidu, Inc, China's largest search engine and the second largest search engine in the world, has belatedly joined a government crackdown aimed at eliminating or blocking content promoting cryptocurrencies on social media and online portals.
Beijing on Aug. 21 launched a harsher crackdown on cryptocurrencies by specifically targeting all mentions of them on the internet and social media. It shut down more than a half dozen online news outlets and also banned physical venues from hosting crypto-related events.
WeChat, the multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app developed by Tencent Holdings, immediately responded to Beijing's crackdown by banning eight blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused media outlets on the same day.
Tencent Holdings, the parent company of WeChat, said its media outlet bans target sites suspected of publishing information about initial coin offerings (ICOs), and cryptocurrency trading speculation. WeChat Pay has banned users from sending or receiving funds related to cryptocurrencies.
Baidu yesterday took steps to block crypto-related content on its online portals. It plans to restrict or place an outright ban on crypto-related topics on Baidu Tieba, its popular Reddit-like online forum.
As of yesterday, Baidu Tieba sub-forums about "digital currency" and "virtual currency" is unavailable to users. Searching for these keywords triggers a statement on the forum that reads, "This forum is temporarily closed due to relevant laws, regulations, and policies."
Baidu Tieba said the closure of the subforums is linked to the company suspecting topics related to ICOs and cryptocurrency speculation were being discussed. It said it took the action "the same with why WeChat did it." This referred to Tencent's blocking several crypto media on WeChat last week as part of a sweeping move to ban all posts about ICOs and crypto trading on its platform.
Alibaba Group Holding Limited, the world's largest retailer and China's answer to Amazon.com, is also part of the crypto crackdown. It vowed to continue monitoring and suspending accounts using Alipay, its mobile payment app, to conduct over-the-counter trading of cryptocurrencies.
Alibaba said it expects to firmly establish risk prevention awareness about the dangers posed by cryptocurrencies. It said it will actively cooperate with the government to maintain financial order and social stability.
Financial experts said the basic reasons for the renewed crackdown on crypto is that since many ICOs and cryptocurrencies are believed to be either inherently fraudulent or used for illegal purposes such as money laundering, reducing awareness of them will reduce consumer exposure to fraud and also reduce the overall scale of associated criminal activity.
