China issues crackdown on unwanted and incessant push notifications

Mobile phone users will be able to get rid of the incessant and undesirable push notifications on their phones in the near future, as the Cyberspace Administration of China just implemented a crackdown against vulgar and incessant push notifications on Friday.

The administration has gathered that the push notifications that receive the most complaints are news without clear sources and incessant news notifications; hyped-up natural calamities, incidents, and crimes; hyped-up entertainment gossip and vulgar content with problematic values; notifications that abuse algorithms to push individualized notifications; and news providers that are not qualified to push notifications.

The crackdown will be implemented on news apps, mobile browsers, official WeChat accounts and tool apps.

Also, the administration required the above-mentioned four categories of apps and accounts to follow these requirements:

News notifications pushed must have clear sources;

Notifications must not hype up trendy issues to manipulate public sentiments;

Entertainment gossip and violent and vulgar content are prohibited from being pushed;

Opinions of immoral and controversial public figures and celebrities are prohibited from being pushed;

And bloody scenes of incidents and natural calamities shouldn't be stressed or singled out.

Further details of the crackdown are yet to be introduced.