HONG KONG — The social media accounts of Hong Kong’s leading English language newspaper South China Morning Post’s (SCMP) have been shut down in China, which also blocked its website yesterday, in what is seen as Beijing’s tightening grip on the media.

The broadsheet’s microblogging accounts on Tencent Weibo and Sina Weibo were suspended on Tuesday, as well as its WeChat page.

All three accounts — which have a total 1.1 milion users as of late last year — were used to post updates of the paper’s Chinese-language website, SCMPChinese.com /nanzao.com.

Users who accessed both SCMP’s Tencent Weibo and Sina Weibo pages encountered an error message which read: “Sorry, there is something wrong with the account you are currently trying to access, and it is temporarily inaccessible.”

At its WeChat page, users were greeted with a black page, with all previous posts published appeared to have been deleted.

American cable and satellite television channel CNN said it was unclear the reason behind the accounts suspension, but suggested that it could be linked to this week’s annual meeting of Chinese legislators, which is typically accompanied by tighter restrictions on the media.

It said SCMP and China’s Internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment yesterday.

Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a high-profile visit to some leading state-controlled news organisations, including China Central Television and the news agency Xinhua, telling them that they exist as propaganda tools for the Communist Party.

Influential and respected news organisation Caixin Media had posted an article on its English-language website reporting that the Cyberspace Administration of China had deleted a March 3 article on Caixin’s Chinese-language website because it contained “illegal content”.

“We’re really in the midst of a new phase of the crackdown on Weibo,” said Mr David Bandurski, a researcher at the China Media Project at Hong Kong University was quoted as saying by CNN. “There’s no doubt we’ve seen steadily under Xi Jinping a worsening of the media environment.”

SCMP was formerly owned by media tycoon Rupert Murdich’s NewsCorp. Highly respected for its reporting, the newspaper was acquired by Malaysian real estate tycoon Robert Kuok in 1993 through his company, Kerry Media.

Late last year, the paper was sold to e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, owned by Chinese tycoon Jack Ma.

Weblog Shanghaiist said the US$266 million (S$367.7 million) acquisition had raised concerns among some readers that the publication’s integrity and independence could be compromised, as Mr Ma’s ties to the governing elite in Beijing are well-known.

It also noted in a report that SCMP was a powerful force on Weibo, where it had over 500,000 followers. In March 2015 it was named one of the most influential Hong Kong media sources on Weibo for the second consecutive year in The Star of Weibo awards, organised annually by Sina Weibo. AGENCIES