File photo shows the exterior view of Shanghai Stock Exchange at Pudong New Area in Shanghai, east China. (Xinhua)

Chinese internet giant Tencent announced on Thursday that the company has addressed a total of 23,124 items of illegal content and dealt with 1,463 accounts that published financial and economic content violating government regulations between October 7-13.

The move by the Chinese social media giant came amid a two-month-long government crackdown on business-content websites and accounts run by influencers. Many accounts have over 1 million active viewers.

In a statement, Tencent said it is actively responding to directives from the Cyberspace Administration of China to regulate illegally published financial news, misleading interpretation of economic policies, and online contents which fan sentiment on shorting the financial markets.

Of the 24 accounts publicized by Tencent as the result of its monitoring activities, seven accounts were permanently shut down, with another seven accounts blocked for a period of 30 days. Another five were temporarily blocked for 15 days.

Among accounts shut down, an account run by Chen Guo, an analyst from Essence Securities, was blocked for seven days across all Tencent platforms. Chen was reportedly seeking a lift of his ban and said he was not aware the reasons behind the action.

The company also said it is also cracking down on misinformation on illegal financial activity on virtual currencies.

Securities regulatory authorities in Shanghai recently issued a notice targeting local securities traders to further strengthen supervision of securities practitioners' social media platforms, according to media reports. 

The Shanghai Securities Regulatory Bureau issued a notice to further regulate the use of We-media tools by local security practitioners in order to protect the legitimate rights and interests of investors. It came after a local security practitioner was detained on suspicion of fraud in connection with his improper use of We-media tools, CCTV reported on Thursday. 

The notice said securities traders must improve internal management and strictly regulate employees' use of We-media tools while establishing or improving the mechanism for practitioners when using WeChat, Weibo, Douyin and other we-media tools to carry out business activities. 

Meanwhile, securities traders should implement effective measures to monitor employees' daily use of social media platforms for business purposes while focusing on the prevention of employees making misleading statements publicly in the name of their securities traders. 

Lastly, securities traders should enhance compliance management and education for securities practitioners, and they were urged to strictly follow the regulations and avoid crossing the bottom line.

Global Times