China has closed 50 websites and social media accounts for violations ranging from pornography to “publishing political news without a permit,” the national cyberspace watchdog said yesterday.

Authorities shut 17 public pages on the mobile social messaging app Weixin, or WeChat, as well as 24 websites and nine channels or columns on websites, the Cyberspace Administration of China said on its website (www.cac.gov.cn).

Some of the other offenses listed include publishing fake information under the guise of the government or media, and publishing information related to gambling or fraud.

Jiang Jun, a spokesman for the watchdog, said it would regularly publish a “blacklist” of violators.

By last autumn, the cyberspace watchdog had closed nearly 1.8 million accounts on social networking and instant messaging services since launching an anti-pornography campaign earlier in the year.

Authorities had received almost 11 million reports of what was described as harmful information online.

In November, officials called for Internet controls to preserve stability.

With a population of 1.4 billion and 632 million people online, China is a market no one wants to miss out on.

Chinese people’s activities online will be subject to reinforced scrutiny as authorities expand the real-name registration system across more social networks and websites.

The watchdog will “comprehensively” promote the management of real identities online, with social networks — including microblogging platforms, forums and instant messaging services — all having to enforce a real-name registration system, administration official Xu Feng said.

Real names will only be seen by backend administrators and users may still choose a screen name.

Internet authorities have been pressing for a real identity system since 2011, and new users of WeChat and other messaging apps have, since August, been required to provide their real names.

China has more than 275 million users of microblogs with Sina Weibo leading the pack, and 459 million users of mobile messaging apps, led by WeChat.