China is taking its anti-crypto stance to a whole new level. Recent searches for major crypto exchanges such as Binance, Huobi, and OKEx on Chinese search engines are not pulling up any results.
Chinese journalist Colin Wu and crypto news site 8BTCNews have both confirmed the news, reporting that as of Wednesday, Chinese search engines had begun censoring crypto-related keywords, particularly those linked with some top exchanges. This appears to be the latest plot by the Chinese government to increase censorship of crypto-related information on social media.
On Monday, China’s Twitter-like microblogging service Weibo (NASDAQ:WB) suspended the accounts of several popular Bitcoin and crypto content creators.
According to Colin Wu, searches for keywords like Binance and Huobi do not return any results for users of Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) and Sogou (NYSE:SOGO), two of the country’s major search engines. Wu further claims that Weibo and Zhihu have imposed similar black-out measures.
At the same time, it was not only search engines that blocked the three major exchanges, but also social media such as Weibo (China's Twitter) and Zhihu (China's quora).— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) June 9, 2021
The latest move to censor crypto-related information on social media is just a part of China’s attempt at crippling cryptocurrency activities. Several provinces have taken the hard stance of banning crypto mining. Furthermore, the regulators have also targeted financial and payment institutions that provide crypto-related services.