China ranked worst country for internet freedom for the 8th year in a row
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China has been named as the most restricted country with regards to internet freedom for the eighth year in a row. Religious freedom advocacy organization Freedom House recently released its “Freedom on the Net 2022” study with these discouraging findings.
On September 1, China’s new “Administrative Measures for Internet Religious Information Services” will be fully implemented across the country. The regulations, which are designed to limit the religious content that individuals and institutions are allowed to share online, have been rolling out in part over the last 6 months.
According to an article by China Christian Daily, “all the registered and underground churches and Christian organizations across China are waiting to see how the rules will be thoroughly carried out from September 1.”
The regulations began to go into effect as early as March 1 of this year. Since then, house churches have seen their WeChat accounts destroyed and their websites shut down or greatly restricted. ICC recently reported on an app that was widely used by Catholics in China that was shut down for failing to properly register under these new restrictions.
The new regulations are part of a wider effort by the Chinese government to infiltrate religious teaching in China with Chinese nationalism and socialist thought. The new laws, comprised of five chapters and thirty-six articles, say that online preaching and the sharing of religious content should be organized and performed by religious organizations that have obtained the “Internet Religious Information Service License.”
Source: persecution.org