AAPL Apple Inc

By Eva Dou 

BEIJING -- A new challenge looms for Apple Inc. in China after internet regulators warned three video-app companies to do a better job of screening out pornography -- an eye-popping task, as is evident here in the offices of the popular Huajiao streaming service.

A team of workers, tasked to police output, watches as images of young women and other video performers flash across their computer screens every two seconds in grids that allow them to watch 60 shows at a time. The mission: to make sure the coquettish video stars don't do anything to violate China's ban on steamy content.

"It's tough because a girl can be talking normally and then suddenly take off her clothes," said a worker.

When the Cyberspace Administration of Beijing issued the warning Tuesday to Huajiao and two other app companies to improve censorship, it also said it planned to summon Apple executives to discuss stricter oversight of the company's App Store. Under regulations issued last year, app stores in China share responsibility for ensuring content is legal.

Apple is the only foreign company running a major app store in China. Its App Store includes video streaming services among its thousands of apps, but Apple itself doesn't stream videos. Apple has said it follows local law about what content is illegal and must be censored. The company and the Beijing Cyberspace Administration didn't reply to requests for comment.

China's app regulations are in line with Beijing's censorship strategy of leaning on private companies to self-censor. The amount of effort that responsibility entails for a live video app could be seen at Huajiao's offices on Thursday.

Huajiao said that before Tuesday's warning it already had 150 in-house employees and around 450 contractors who work three shifts to keep eyes on live videos around the clock; the company hasn't added personnel but has stepped up monitoring since receiving the warning, it said.

Every video stream -- Huajiao said it has around 1 million a day -- is monitored at half-hour intervals. Young employees, clad in T-shirts and sneakers, drink tea and eat sleeves of crackers as they scan grids of talking faces, sometimes clicking on them to check more closely.

China's live-stream video hosts are similar to YouTube stars, self-made entertainers who do all kinds of performances. Some feature flirtatious young women who sing or chat with viewers, and cajole them to buy virtual gifts for them through the apps. Sometimes they use nudity to encourage gift-giving.

"The majority of censorship in China is really done by self-censorship of companies to avoid themselves getting into trouble," said Patrick Poon, a China researcher for Amnesty International. Companies face possible fines and shutdown if they don't comply.

In China, the range of forbidden content extends beyond pornography and violence to political speech. For chat apps and blogs, Chinese internet companies feed blacklists of sensitive words into screening software.

For years, China state television broadcast important "live" events with a delay of under a minute to allow it to reach censors' eyes first.

But with the explosion of live-streaming apps, any regular person in China can broadcast themselves live to tens of thousands of viewers across the country. When it comes to real-time video streams, censorship is a daunting task, as Facebook Inc. was reminded this week when a user posted a live video of a murder.

This week's official warnings come as part of a broader push by authorities to update the country's longstanding online censorship mechanism for the mobile era. China issued the app regulations last year and in January put some of the onus on app store operators by requiring them to register.

With Google Play blocked in the country, Apple has been the only Western company with broad powers to influence what digital content reaches Chinese consumers' phones. That has meant Apple frequently comes under the scrutiny of censorship authorities.

In January, Apple said it removed the New York Times from its App Store in China, following a request from Chinese authorities. Last year, China shut down Apple's online book and movie services without specifying a reason. Authorities told Apple it lacked the necessary license, a person familiar with the matter said at the time.

Given Apple's unique position as a major foreign digital content provider in China, some companies here aren't too happy with App Store policies. Social media giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. said Wednesday it killed a popular "tipping" feature for iOS users of its WeChat messaging platform after Apple said the feature didn't comply with its App Store policy.

--Yang Jie contributed to this article.

Write to Eva Dou at eva.dou@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 20, 2017 11:38 ET (15:38 GMT)

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