Video sharing site Bilibili removed from app stores amid Beijing’s content ‘clean up’

Bilibili, which operates a popular Chinese platform to share video and animation, was removed from a number of smartphone app stores in China after being criticised by state-owned television for inappropriate content.

The Nasdaq-listed company has been “in deep self-review and reflection” after a recent meeting with government authorities, it said in a statement released on Friday. CCTV last week censured the Shanghai-based company for hosting animation that featured incest and other inappropriate content.

In response, Bilibili said it will increase self-checking on published content and more than double the workforce of its content review team.

“We have established a new content review centre in Wuhan, which will officially be in operation by the end of the month,” it noted, adding that a third content review centre will also be built as planned. The company did not indicate if the content review centre expansion was in response to the latest incident.

“Bilibili has retained a discipline committee totalling 36,000 members and it keeps expanding,” the company said, adding that it will “strengthen the discipline committee” mechanism.

China has been tightening its control of the internet, clamping down on content deemed inappropriate. In April, four news apps, including Jinri Toutiao and ifeng News, were removed from app stores for two weeks amid a move by authorities to “clean up” the broadcasting environment. Under the continued effort, the country has shut down more than 13,000 websites in the last three years.