Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on January 4, 2018 that online Chinese news platform Toutiao is recruiting some 2,000 editors to oversee content delivered to its smartphone app, after being admonished last week for alleged breaches of regulations and for spreading "pornographic and vulgar content." the Global Times newspaper said the suspension of Toutiao's service was aimed to "better promote mainstream values and the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China". The job of these content editors will be to filter out "illegal" stories from among the pool that the app sends to its users in a tailored news feed. Members of the Chinese Communist Party are particularly encouraged to apply for the job, which offers full health coverage and pension benefits and paid leave, on a salary of up to 6,000 yuan per month, according to an advertisement on the recruitment platform Lagou.com. Applicants who are Communist Party members will be prioritized, but all applicants must be college graduates, preferably majoring in journalism, with "a passion for news and current affairs and good political sensitivity and discrimination." They must also possess "an excellent grasp of the mobile internet and internet-related laws and regulations."

Last Friday, Beijing's Cyberspace Administration temporarily suspended both Toutiao and Phoenix News for carrying pornographic content. Both were also accused of "having serious problems in guiding public opinion," suggesting a political aspect to the closures. Both companies promised to tighten up controls on content and management of staff after they were summoned to a meeting with internet supervision officials. The ousted former editor of Baixing magazine, Huang Liangtian, said the Chinese government under President Xi Jinping is constantly reviewing its notion of what constitutes undesirable content, meaning that few in the media know exactly where the lines are drawn. "Content reviewers won't necessarily be able to do the job even when they're hired," Huang said. "The problem we have right now is that ... people can cross a red line without realizing it." Hong Kong political commentator Cai Yongmei said Toutiao isn't well-known for its political content, and the current clampdown on its operations is symptomatic of a wider fear that nearly 700 million people who access the internet by mobile device will get politically sensitive news of the wider world channeled to their inboxes by "gossipy" apps. Cai Yongmei said "The thing the authorities fear most of all right now is that overseas popular movements will spread to mainland China. That's why they are being more and more selective and controlling about content."