Huoshan (火山小视频), the short video platform backed by Toutiao, has temporarily shut down the city channel (同城频道) to clean up the vulgar content. It is still unclear how long the channel will be offline, Chinese media TechWeb is reporting.
A week ago China’s media regulator, the State Administration of Radio and Television and China Central Television criticized two short videos apps, Huoshan Short Video (火山小视频) and Kuaishou (快手), for displaying vulgar content. These apps disappeared in Android stores the following day but remain accessible in the Apple App Store.
Huoshan said that the current main page video page has undergone a comprehensive clean up, and will strictly follow the requirements from the regulatory authorities to further improve the standard during the rectification period, and conduct comprehensive cleaning up of existing and past contents on the platform.
At the same time, the Huoshan has now created a “Hello! New Age (你好！新时代)” topic on the recommendation site, focusing on “positive energy content” such as Chinese students wearing school uniform and doing sports together. It also features authorized content and positive energy video channel on the top.
Huoshan said that in the future, it will comprehensively increase the auditing standards, increase the intensity of content review, and check any suspected content. If there are any violations, it will shut down its uploading function and take permanent measures, and will not tolerate it.
On April 4, the State Cyber Information Office interviewed Kuaishou and the relevant person in charge of the Jinri Toutiao’s Huoshan and made serious crackdown, ordering a full clean up of its content. On April 6, the Huoshan short video announced that it will implement various management requirements one by one, in-depth self-inspection and self-correction, and establish correct values internally and externally. On April 7, Huoshan closed all accounts (in Chinese) of underage users.
Huoshan is one of the top four short video platforms, along with Kuaishou, Douyin, and Watermelon and was among the Spring Festival’s top 5 apps based.