Chinese authorities summoned Hennes & Mauritz AB about what they said was an improper mapping on the H&M website, increasing pressure on the Swedish clothing brand as it faces social media fury for its stance against cotton supply from the Chinese region. from Xinjiang.
Employees called the company into a discussion of violating Chinese law after home Internet users informed authorities that the H&M website contained “problematic Chinese maps”, the Shanghai arm of China’s Cyberspace Administration said Friday, the country’s Internet regulator.
The regulator did not offer details about the alleged mapping offense, but said the operator of the H&M website had taken steps to correct the problem. In a statement published on the social media platform WeChat, he said the fashion giant was instructed to study several Chinese laws, “to reinforce its awareness of the national territory and to really guarantee the standardized use of the Chinese map”.
H&M could not be reached immediately for comment.
This is not the first time that H&M has had problems in China because of problems related to maps. In 2018, she was asked to list Taiwan as a country on the Taiwanese version of her website. The company has also been criticized by Chinese Internet users for listing Hong Kong, Macau and Tibet as individual countries.