China has rolled out a new law effectively barring internet users in the country from posting negative content about the country online.

The Provisions on the Governance of the Online Information Content Ecosystem took effect Sunday. It was first announced in December.

“Illegal” online posts now include “dissemination of rumors,” “disrupting economic or social order,” and anything “destroying national unity.”

The China Law Translate project described the conditions as “distressingly vague and easily abused.”

The new law could now be used to suppress news about the novel coronavirus. China has already censored details about the outbreak while arresting and disappearing multiple whistleblowers.

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China has enforced a new law that effectively allows people to post only “positive” content about the country on the internet.

The Provisions on the Governance of the Online Information Content Ecosystem, which was announced December 15, came into effect Sunday amid dissent over the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The law is designed to “create a positive online ecosystem” and “preserve national security and the public interest,” the government document said.

Foto: Xi inspecting the novel coronavirus prevention and control work at Anhuali Community in Beijing on February 10. Source: Xinhua via REUTERS

The law splits online content into three groups: “encouraged,” “negative,” and “illegal,” according to an unofficial translation by Jeremy Daum, who runs the China Law Translate project.

Though the new law contains conditions borrowed from existing national security laws, it also contains new conditions that Daum described as “distressingly vague and easily abused.”

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According to the new law:

Illegal content includes the “dissemination of rumors,” “disrupting economic or social order,” “subverting the national regime,” and “destroying national unity.”

Negative content includes “sensationalizing headlines” and any “other content with a negative impact to the online information ecosystem.”

Encouraged content includes “spreading and explaining Party doctrine,” “spreading economic and social achievement” and “other positive and wholesome content.”

It also bars people from spreading rumors and “insulting, threatening, and doxxing people,” according to Abacus News, a tech website run by the South China Morning Post.

Chinese citizens criticized the new law on social media, and a hashtag relating to the law was viewed more than 3 million times on Monday alone, The Guardian reported.

“In the future there will be only good news, and no bad news,” one person said, according to the newspaper.

“They only want us to see what they want us to see, and hear what they want us to hear. This is basically the internet version of social policing,” said another.

Foto: A poster simulating facial-recognition software at a security conference in Beijing in October 2018. Source: Thomas Peter/Reuters

China’s government and tech companies have long been known to distort data and enforce strict censorship on what its citizens can see, and the new law comes as China scrambles to suppress criticism amid a national emergency over the coronavirus outbreak.

Criticism about the Chinese government is rare to see on social media, as critical posts are often quickly removed and banned, and the people behind them censured.

At least five prominent medical experts or journalists – including the whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang – have been disappeared, arrested, or silenced after speaking out about the outbreak.

Li died of the coronavirus, and Chinese citizens marked his death by calling for an end to censorship with three viral hashtags: “The Wuhan government owes Li Wenliang an apology,” “I want freedom of speech,” and “We want freedom of speech.” All these messages were eventually censored from social media sites like Weibo.

The Reuters China correspondent Cate Cadell tweeted that several people she had spoken with reported being tracked by Chinese authorities for posting information about sick relatives or friends on social media.

Foto: Doctors treating patients infected by the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak, on February 24. Source: STR/AFP via Getty Images

Over the course of one week in January there were 250 cases of people being punished for posting critical content about China’s coronavirus response, the US-based advocacy group Chinese Human Rights Defenders reported.

In February, a number of virtual-private-network operators also said China was attempting to disrupt their access in the country, according to the Financial Times. Using a VPN in China allows people to access websites like Facebook and Twitter that are blocked by the government.

China’s internet censorship also extends beyond government criticism. Authorities have in recent weeks also banned some feminist and LGBT content online, The Guardian said.