Who more are going to suffer from China´s online media laws? - Paul Gillis

Paul Gillis

Not only foreign media companies, but anybody who publishes online might suffer under the new online media restrictions, says accounting professor Paul Gillis, including financial companies, he explains in the New York Times.

The New York Times:

Multinational companies have long complained that the rules in China are discriminatory. Foreign firms need licenses that can be difficult to get to operate web services in China, and there are restrictions on their ability to invest in many Chinese sectors. Several big companies, including Microsoft, have also been the subject of anti-trust investigations. 

The regulations stipulate that anything published online should “serve the people” and promote socialism and do no harm to national interests, barring, for instance, the spreading of rumors or propagating evil cults. 

Paul Gillis, an accounting expert who teaches at Peking University in Beijing, says a lot will also be determined by the way China executes and enforces the rules, since there is tremendous variation in the way laws are enacted and enforced in the country and to whom they apply. 

“What about law firms and accounting firms — are they going to be subject to these rules?” he said. “And what about companies that just have an instruction manual online, are they also going to fall under this type of rule?”

More in the New York Times.

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