Published: September 10, 2013 65 Comments
HONG KONG — These are bad times to be a Big V in China.
Big V, for verified account, is the widely used moniker for the most influential commentators on China’s growing microblog sites — online celebrities whose millions of fans read, discuss and spread their outpouring of news and opinions, plenty of which chastise or ridicule officials. And the Communist Party has turned against them in the most zealous crackdown on the Internet in years.
Worried about its hold on public opinion, the Chinese government has pursued a propaganda and police offensive against what it calls malicious rumor-mongering online. Police forces across the country have announced the detentions of hundreds of microblog users since last month on charges of concocting and spreading false claims, often politically damaging. For weeks, a torrent of commentaries in the state-run news media have warned popular opinion makers on China’s biggest microblog site, Sina’s Weibo service, to watch their words.
One of the most popular microbloggers, Charles Xue, an American investor of Chinese origin who writes under the name Xue Manzi, was arrested in Beijing on Aug. 23, accused of having sex with a prostitute. He has been paraded on television, contrite in jail clothes. Mr. Xue was due to finish his initial detention by Tuesday, and the police could release him or hold him for extended punishment and investigation, according to Chinese news reports.
But the state news media have already made a point for other outspoken commentators. “The Internet Big V ‘Xue Manzi’ has toppled from the sacred altar,” said the main state-run news agency, Xinhua. “This has sounded a warning bell about the law to all Big V’s on the Internet.”
Officials have described their campaign as urgent surgery to drain toxic lies from the Internet. But critics call that a pretext to tame the entire microblog world, honest as well as dishonest. With more than 500 million registered accounts and about 54 million daily users, Sina Weibo has grown into a raucous forum, instantly spreading news and views in brief messages that can flit past censors.
Big V has become the generic name for influential voices, not all officially verified, on microblogs, especially on Sina’s site. “Weibo” means microblog in Chinese, and other rival services also use that name.
“We’re only seeing the beginning of this campaign,” said Xiao Qiang, an adjunct professor at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies the Chinese Internet. “And this round they’ll be much harsher, and the targets will be the more influential people in the Chinese public sphere.”
The campaign is among the efforts of Xi Jinping, the Communist Party leader appointed in November, to reverse the spread of liberal ideas that challenge one-party rule, observers said.
For now, Mr. Xue has become the most lurid trophy in the party’s effort to undermine the credibility of many Big V’s. Chinese television news shows have broadcast outraged reports about his conduct, including one that showed him being arrested and confessing to sexual misdeeds.
Mr. Xue has drawn more than 12 million registered fans to his microblog. Many supporters believe that the police kindled outrage about his sexual behavior because of his sharp criticism of officials. Even Hu Xijin, an ardently pro-party newspaper editor, agreed. “Using sexual scandal, tax evasion and so on to take down political foes is a hidden rule common among governments worldwide,” Mr. Hu wrote in a comment on his Sina Weibo account that was quickly removed.
The rise of microblogs has given prominent commentators a powerful, and potentially lucrative, platform. Their reach is sweeping, even discounting the many fake and dormant accounts among the fan numbers. Sina Weibo lists 347 users — a few of them companies or groups — with more than five million registered fans each; each of the top five has more than 50 million. Plenty of the most popular users are entertainment stars; others have turned their online celebrity into its own kind of stardom, with well-paid careers based on media appearances, product endorsements and books.
The attention of a Big V microblogger can transform an otherwise obscure issue — a land dispute in a village, graft by a small-town official — into a subject of passionate national discussion and a headache for the government. The tone of their commentary varies from earnest outrage to sarcasm to allusive irony; the last is intended to lull censors who prowl for offensive messages.
“Some of them have become more influential than certain state media organs,” said Bill Bishop, who publishes the Sinocism newsletter, closely follows Chinese Internet issues and also contributes to the DealBook blog at The New York Times. “Weibo is so fast, and the velocity and breadth of the transmission of information is just so much greater now than it is in newspapers and even on TV.”
But the explosion of Weibo has also fed a dank undergrowth of frauds and fakery. Businesses use bogus “zombie” accounts to spread paid-for messages that give a boost to clients or discredit their rivals. Other operators make money by scrubbing messages that are damaging to businesses or politicians. “There is a lot of pay for play and dirty money going around,” Mr. Bishop said.
The Chinese authorities have said their crackdown is directed at such abuses. The police across the country have announced the arrests of hundreds of other people accused of spreading false rumors online. The police have said Qin Zhihui, whose online name is Qin Huohuo, admitted to concocting 3,000 false rumors over three years as part of a business to create shock and attention that he could then use to advance himself and his clients.
But the accusations against Mr. Qin and many other arrested microbloggers also have a political edge. Many other rumors called outrageously false by the government have dwelt on the sins of officials: corruption, venality and sexual escapades.
“On Weibo, China appears as if it’s an evil country,” said Wang Wen, a former newspaper editor turned university researcher who urges tightened controls on microblogs. “It’s seriously affecting China’s social stability and political governance.”
Hao Qun, a Chinese novelist who became popular on Weibo under the name Murong Xuecun, said the crackdown was intended to break up online networks of like-minded people whose ideas could challenge the Communist Party.
“They want to sever those relationships and make the relationship on Weibo atomized, just like relations in Chinese society, where everyone is just a solitary atom,” Mr. Hao said. In May, his microblog accounts on Sina and other Chinese services were deleted without any explanation. “I created a lot of sensitive words,” he said.
This week, China’s highest court and prosecution office issued guidelines for defining and punishing online rumors and slander. The rules gave some protection to citizens who accuse officials of corruption, but they also said a slanderous message forwarded more than 500 times or read more than 5,000 times could earn convicted offenders up to three years in prison.
China has experienced deep chills on Internet opinion before. In 2011, the Communist Party began a crackdown on dissent, fearful that the uprisings across the Arab world would inspire protests in China. In July of that year, however, the deadly crash of a high-speed train prompted an outpouring of anger on the Internet that eroded the controls.
“I don’t think these intimidation tactics will work,” said Hung Huang, a magazine publisher with millions of followers on Weibo. “People will shut up for a month. Then they’ll come back. Maybe not the same people, but another group of people.”
Amy Qin and Lucy Chen contributed research.
