Cyberspace Administration of China, the country's top Internet censorship body, has tightened its grip on media reports circulating online in a bid to lessen news published without proper verification, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.
The instruction was issued few days after Lu Wei, who helms Chinese Internet affairs, was replaced by Xu Lin, the organization's former deputy head.
Xu is coincidentally regarded as one of Chinese President Xi Jinping's key supporters.
Under the intensified scheme, online media outlets are not allowed to report news based from social media websites without getting prior approval.
"All websites should bear the key responsibility to further streamline the course of reporting and publishing of news, and set up a sound internal monitoring mechanism among all mobile news portals [and the social media chat websites] Weibo or WeChat," state-run Xinhua News Agency quoted the directive.
"It is forbidden to use hearsay to create news or use conjecture and imagination to distort the facts," the publication wrote.
Furthermore, the cyberspace watchdog gave an order to its regional counterparts to comply with their basic duties of supervising, inspecting and punishing media outlets found guilty of violating Internet censorship regulations.
"No website is allowed to report public news without specifying the sources, or report news that quotes untrue origins," the circular noted, further emphasizing that news distortion or fabrication are also strictly prohibited.
The report moreover noted thst some popular news portals such as Sina.com, 163.com and Caijing.com have been punished for news fabrication. Nonetheless, details as to how much the penalty is were not divulged.
In an effort to intensify this measure, the Chinese government has already sought to codify this particular policy in law.
China has been tight on its Internet policies as it sees the need to ensure online security against rising threats like terrorism and cyberattacks.