Calls for regulating emojis and stickers in chatting apps have been made by a newspaper affiliated with Beijing’s Communist rulers, amid a tightening of online information and the wider media in China.

Concerns about the language used in widely-shared stickers were raised in an article in the overseas edition of the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily.

The article, which was written partly in the style of a named commentary, urged: “There should be regulations on how to use emojis on social networking websites.”