China's finance influencers face stricter rules on Tencent's live-streaming channels as Beijing moves to shore up confidence on economy

Tencent Holdings has tightened its rules for live streamers producing financial content on its popular social media platform WeChat, as Beijing ramps up scrutiny of online speech to arrest waning confidence in the country's economy and markets.

Only licensed professionals are now permitted to be finance live streamers on WeChat, and they must show up in person during live sessions, according to new platform requirements that took effect on Monday.

Finance live streamers whose topics cover stocks, bonds, funds, insurance and trusts are also banned from sharing specific investment advice, such as market predictions and analyses of so-called candlestick charts.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

The new rules on WeChat Channels, an in-app video section launched in 2020, come as internet companies in China continue to ramp up content regulation in response to government demand.

Tencent offices in Beijing. Photo: Bloomberg alt=Tencent offices in Beijing. Photo: Bloomberg>

China's largest social media platforms, which also include short-video apps Kuaishou Technology and Douyin and TikTok operator ByteDance, and video-streaming site Bilibili, recently asked popular influencers to display their real identities online, in what appeared to be a concerted move.

Users with half-a-million followers or more were told to show their real names on profile pages, leading some influencers with large followings to close their accounts.

In particular, online commentators focused on discussions of financial markets and the economy have increasingly become subject to a crackdown, as Beijing seeks to boost investor sentiment amid a rocky economy.

While China has been making headway with its post-pandemic recovery, it continues to wrestle with high local government debt, declining property investments, weak consumer demand and geopolitical headwinds.

Social media platform Weibo in June suspended the account of Wu Xiaobo, a prominent economic and financial writer, saying that he had "hyped up the unemployment rate", "smeared the development of the security market" and "attacked and undermined" China's government policy. Wu had nearly 5 million followers on Weibo.

While it was unclear which exact social media posts led to the suspension, Wu had said on social media app Xiaohongshu that "the industrial economy is sluggish, and private entrepreneurs collectively lack the willingness to invest".

Tencent has placed high hopes on Channels to be one of the company's main growth drivers going forward. The Shenzhen-based giant has also moved to consolidate its sprawling business empire, covering social media, video gaming and videos. It announced earlier this month that it was closing down its seven-year-old live-streaming and short-video service Now.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.