WeChat cracks down on 'gossip' accounts

 WeChat has recently shut down dozens of widely followed accounts in accordance with the demands of internet regulators. Tencent, which owns WeChat, followed orders from the Guangdong branch of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and closed 32 WeChat subscription accounts beginning Thursday, Caixin reports. Among the accounts closed was that of Harper’s Bazaar, and the celebrity gossip weekly owned by Southern Metropolis, one of the nation’s largest media groups. Internet regulators said they’re only attempting to weed out defamatory content and protect individuals’ privacy. People’s Daily has issued a series of cutting retorts about reader’s voracious appetite for “gossip” after several celebrity cheating scandals dominated headlines this year. It even penned an editorial in April urging readers not to “worry themselves over the private lives of celebrities,” and in May, it deplored the “rowdiness of entertainment news” after paparazzi-uncovered events led to endless analyses and commentary on other sites.