(Yicai Global) Jan. 4 -- China's web watchdog penalized Beijing-based internet mammoths Baidu and Sohu.Com and yesterday for propagating improper content and ordered them to desist from certain updates for a week.

It has talked with the two companies' executives and the 'News Section' of both Sohu.Com's website and its Sohu News app, and the 'Recommendation Section' of both Baidu's mobile site and its Baidu News app have stopped adding updates. The 'Women's Section,' 'Humor Section' and 'Emotion Section' of Baidu's app have also ceased their updates for a week as of 3.00 p.m. yesterday, the Beijing office of the Cyberspace Administration of China said in two statements released the same day.

These announcements did not detail the duo's offending subject matter, but myriad online platforms and their products display zesty visual content or provocative text as click bait, with their lust for traffic driving many to overstep the bounds.

Beijing's online sentinel zapped 110,000 law-breaking and rule-violating WeMedia accounts in December last year to purge the local online terrain of salacious or ethnically-divisive expression. Various platforms deleted some 496,000 offending posts in that drive.

Editor: Ben Armour