#crackdowns

Turns out the number of Chinese online users below 30 years of age is 540 million, and they comprise about 50% of Chinese online users altogether. 

(...If we look at the number of Wang Yibo’s and Xiao Zhan’s online followers, taken together, they will come up to some 73 million people. Some of those followers are bots; some are over 30 years old; some overlap (at least 4,5 million shippers, + potentially works-appreciators-of-both-but-not-shippers); some may be "water armies" soldiers. But I do believe if we subtract these, we may come down to at least 54 million people. That would mean that every tenth Chinese online user below thirty is either a Xiao Zhan follower, or a Wang Yibo follower. And that puts the fan wars between the three fandoms (“shrimps”, “moto” and “turtles”) in perspective. It is a massive societally disruptive ongoing online conflict.)

“According to the initiative, young people are the most active group in the virtual world and play a crucial role in making the cyberspace civilized. By guiding young netizens into becoming the participants, keepers, communicators and promoters of civilized behavior, the whole online environment can be injected with positive energy, it said.” (source)

This made me think of an article I read about the pattens of “survival and migration” in Chinese fandoms. As far as I understand it, what happens is some fans do something stupid and disgraceful that comes up on the first page of “trending on Weibo” or elsewhere as visible to international observers, and this is a “loss of face” situation for the country. Regulatory organs execute a “crackdown”, close some fandom spaces, fans migrate elsewhere, the cycle repeats. ...There are many other factors involved, of course, besides just "stupid and/or disgraceful", but this is a big topic for potential separate discussion.

But now it looks like they are looking for a positive alternative, a “thriving settlement” model instead of “evicted tenants” model. 

“The two-day conference, themed on gathering positive energy online and fostering new trends of the times, was jointly held by the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission and the Central Commission for Guiding Cultural and Ethical Progress, along with Anhui provincial authorities.

Li Shulei, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, delivered a keynote speech at the event.” (source)

That tells us about the importance of the event. The Politburo is a very small group of people at the highest tier of authority. The presence of Li Shulei shows how seriously the state is taking the issue of “online rumours”. What constitutes rumours, now, that’s a great question. 

“The event features an opening ceremony, main forum, 14 sub-forums, and special themed activities, making it a major national-level event addressing internet governance and digital culture. With participation from high-level officials and industry leaders, the conference coincides with the launch of the 2025 National Digital Literacy Enhancement Month, showcasing innovative technological demonstrations and cultural performances, and addressing crucial contemporary issues like AI governance, online ethics, and digital development.” (source)

The rhetoric of “clean and upright” online environment is here again, as it has been since the earlier crackdowns. But this time it happens within the 10-year framework of the initiative of “building a strong education nation”, prioritising both critical thinking, learning, and mental health, that the country has launched in January this year. 

At the conference, they have been talking about “fairer and more open content distribution mechanism can be designed, presenting more authentic and comprehensive information to a vast number of netizens”, that implies the understanding that the current online algorithms amplify bad quality content (fake, scandalous, clickbait-ey etc.), making the more “emotionally provocative” pieces of information more visible and influential than the more “rational, wise, thought-provoking, and clear”. And that this is seen now as a problem to be addressed. 

The rhetoric now is about “sharing positive stories of community-building from all sectors of society”. Tell us what really works in practice, in other words. This is solution-focused, not only problem-focused, and creating a pool of success stories for collaborative learning.

Because really, what makes an online community a community? What is needed to create a welcoming and supportive digital space for the fandom, in particular? 

Maybe it is not just “surveil, identify, and punish” strategy. 

I guess we’ll see a lot of changes in the Chinese online space in the next few months. (Fastening the seatbelt, ha.) 

One of the sub-forums at the conference was called “International Exchange and Mutual Learning on Internet Civilization“, which is particularly interesting for me, because of the existence of what is commonly called the Great Chinese Firewall, or the Wall, in short, — the massive blocking of access to “outside” Internet space for common Chinese users. How can international exchange and mutual learning happen over/ across the Wall? Of course it is not fully impenetrable, we can see that, for example, the celebrities and their studios have international presence (to post,- and, I assume, to research internationally available celebrity-related information). 

This sounded interesting: “multi-stakeholder governance in cyberspace. He (Ran) called for embracing openness and inclusiveness, expanding international cooperation, and promoting cultural exchange and mutual learning among civilizations. By working together, stakeholders can build a more just, secure, and dynamic digital future that benefits people across countries and regions.” (source) If it is not just “officialese”, what can happen to ensure the reality of this vision? Extremely interesting.

So what is my take out from all that:

Change is coming within the next few months

Online rumours will be better identified and less tolerated

Understanding and embodying traditional Chinese values and the ideal of the “positive youth” that is in the Party directives, will become a requirement for Chinese netizens; a value-based approach to online engagement

Critical thinking and discernment of valid/ invalid sources (and making logical conclusions from the data from the given sources) will be taught (and enforced?)