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BEIJING. – China has fined several of the country’s biggest technology firms for failing to remove illegal online content as the authorities intensify their policing of the Internet.

Three web giants operating popular social media services have received “maximum penalties” for allowing the publication of pornographic, violent and other sorts of banned material, the Cyberspace Administration of China said. Internet users had shared the content on Baidu’s online forum Tieba, the microblogging site Weibo, and Tencent’s WeChat application, according to the watchdog.

The companies also failed to block content that “promoted ethnic hatred,” it said in a statement on Monday. The amounts of the fines were not made public. The firms were also ordered to immediately remove illegal content as well as increase platform management measures.

A Baidu spokeswoman told AFP the company is “actively cooperating with the government” to “purge bad information” from its Tieba forum. – AFP.