Douban Urged to Address Network Issues

In view of the serious network chaos on social platform Douban, Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) instructed the Beijing Internet Office to send a team of moderators to the website on Tuesday to supervise the APP’s overhaul.

Douban focuses on sharing books, film and television content and reviews. According to iiMedia Polaris, in December 2021, the website had 5.883 million monthly active users, ranking tenth in the industry, and Sina Weibo, Baidu Tieba, and Zhihu ranked in the top three.

However, the website has violated regulations in regard to content review and personal information collection. According to the CAC, from January to November 2021, the CAC instructed the Beijing Internet Office to impose 20 penalties on Douban, and repeatedly imposed a fine of 500,000 yuan ($78,420), with a total fine of 9 million yuan.

At the beginning of December last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice that Douban App was removed from some app stores due to its violations in collecting personal information.

In February this year, Douban was suspected of leaking users’ private information. According to the users, the app embeds an imperceptible watermark in the page. If the user has logged in, the account may be included in the screenshot and the information may be leaked. In response, the website said that it is a new function to guard against the re-uploading of content, and the group leader can choose to turn it on or off.

SEE ALSO: Douban App Screenshots Contain User Information Watermark

Douban has also been making efforts to resolve network issues. According to its data, as of November 26, 2021, the website has deleted more than 420,000 pieces of information that violate regulations, and nearly 5,000 illegal accounts have been muted, while more than 80 illegal groups have been dissolved or deactivated.