Chinese Government Targets Music and Podcast Streaming Services Now ByBill Toulas-July 1 2019.467 The Chinese government is prolonging the crackdown by shutting 26 music and podcast services. Podcasts are bashed for bringing forward opinions that undermine the country and government. Music apps are targeted because they promote songs with anti-state lyrics, and inacceptable artists ‘ host records. Internet access in China has just got a little worse after the Chinese government agreed to have 26 music and podcast sharing services terminated. The official explanation for this action is that several of those apps spread “historical nihilism” and “pornography” and while some of the platforms may be permitted again after the appropriate discussion with the regulators occurs most of them will be banned in the country. Some of the apps reported within the community are “Douyin” (Chinese TikTok), “Kuaishou” and “Heart.” Nevertheless, chat-themed podcasts were not the only category of audio apps targeted at this time. Weirdly, the Chinese authorities have also expressed their frustration at music streaming service devices. What apps these are not clear, but users already complain that NetEase Cloud Music Lizhi Fm and Himalaya Fm have been withdrawn from the app stores, and the only explanation given by them is a message of urgent maintenance. Apparently as more and more musicians speak out against the repressive government music streaming apps, they become outlets of unwelcome criticism and fosters ideas of unaccepted personal freedoms. For example, the NetEase platform has recently been forced to remove Li Zhi’s songs, a folk musician known throughout the country for expressing his thoughts against authoritarian policies through his lyrics as well as through public statements. The 41-year-old man has even recently vanished and his many thousands of fans don’t even know what happened to him. At the same time his WeChat profile was deleted and all his music (multiple records) was banned from virtually everywhere in China.