Streaming site to 'purify' videos, bans youngsters

A popular Chinese livestreaming app plans to ban online 'hosts' under 18 and build a 5,000-person team to "purify" its video content after it and similar platforms were ordered to clean up their content by the government's internet watchdog.

"To reinforce our supervision team, we will enlarge the team from the current 2,000 to 5,000, and strengthen training in order to upgrade employees' sense of social responsibility and build a team with firm political awareness," announced Kuaishou, a popular social video-sharing app, on its official Sina Weibo account Friday.

According to recruitment information posted Friday on lagou.com, a job-hunting site for the IT sector, Kuaishou is recruiting 3,000 supervisors to examine videos and pictures that users upload to the platform.

"Those who have good political awareness and quality are preferred. Members of the Communist Youth League of China and the Communist Party of China are preferred," the recruitment advertisement said.

Kuaishou's announcement came after the Cyberspace Administration of China on Wednesday ordered two popular livestreaming sites, Kuaishou and Toutiao, to make changes to their practices. The two companies were accused of allowing minors to spread harmful content, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Saturday, which did not specify the nature of the forbidden content.

The two companies have promised to close all livestreaming accounts hosted by minors within five days, establish content regulations for users, and suspend certain livestreaming functions.

The administration has closed nearly 5,000 livestreaming accounts hosted by people under 18 and deleted some 300,000 video clips aired by livestreaming minors, Xinhua said on Saturday.

Since March, 70 online applications suspected of involvement in pornography or gambling have been taken down.

Such live streaming platforms have been promoting contents on underage mothers, such as "14-year-old gave birth to a son" or "the youngest mom with two children," domestic news site china.com reported on Tuesday.

"When teenagers watch such videos, the platform will recommend similar ones. This has a negative influence on them, allowing them to think abnormal things are normal," Tian Feng, an expert on youth and social issues at the Chinese Academy and Social Sciences, was quoted by china.com as saying.