Chinese authorities have apprehended the founder of DouYu, a game-streaming site backed by Tencent, after officials began investigating pornographic and gambling – illegal content – on the platform several months ago.

The company told the state-owned Cover News media outlet they “lost contact” last month with Chen Shaoji, the 39-year-old CEO of the Nasdaq-listed group, according to reports by the FT and various gaming news-sites.

Officials from China’s internet watchdog sent a team of officials to Douyu’s office in May for “rectification” and supervision after the vulgar content was discovered, the reports said.

 

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Chen is the latest of a series of tech entrepreneurs who have fallen offside with authorities since Alibaba’s Jack Ma voiced criticism of officials in late 2020 – a controversial speech that sparked a furious crackdown on internet companies and led to a sector-wide crackdown, plus a major restructuring the Alibaba Group.

Chen was credited with making DouYu a leading game and e-sports platform, drawing about 50 million users a month to view a wide range of content, from war games to live cooking shows, the FT said.

The company was said to have 6.6 billion yuan ($906 million) of cash and investments on its books this year, but its market cap was less than a third of that.

 

 

ALSO SEE:

 

Beijing’s Crackdown Wiped $1.1 Trillion Off Chinese Big Tech

 

China Needs Tech Self-Reliance to Avoid Being Strangled: Xi – SCMP

 

Jack Ma Has Been Living in Tokyo for Six Months

 

 

Jim Pollard

Jim Pollard is an Australian journalist based in Thailand since 1999. He worked for News Ltd papers in Sydney, Perth, London and Melbourne before travelling through SE Asia in the late 90s. He was a senior editor at The Nation for 17+ years.


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