Chinese social media companies have launched a new crackdown on user content, targeting posts that display personal wealth and financial extravagance.
In a statement posted online on Wednesday, Weibo said it had spent this month conducting special management work on “unwanted value-oriented content,” including “display of wealth and worship of money”.
The statement said it targeted posts showing luxury cars and expensive properties. Posts seen as boasting about wealth and the freedom that comes with wealth were also removed.
Other social media companies, including Tencent, Douyin and Xiaohongshu, have released similar statements.
The crackdown is part of China’s campaign to create a “social-ecological environment that is civilized, healthy and harmonious,” the statement on Weibo said. He encouraged users to instead create or share high-quality, truthful and positive value-oriented content on the platform to further create a “good community atmosphere of upward mobility and kindness.”
Douyin said he removed 4,701 messages and 11 accounts from May 1 to May 7. Xiaohongshu said it had cleaned up 4,273 “illegal” posts in the past two weeks and closed 383 accounts, and Weibo said it had removed more than 1,100 pieces of content, according to Chinese media. The cover.
The tougher approach appears to be part of a nationwide campaign by Chinese authorities to “purifying the Internet cultural environment”, which was launched in 2016.
Despite the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party to achieve “general prosperity“, the gap between the rich and the poor is widening.
Data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed that the 2023 income gap in Beijing reached its largest value since data collection began in 1985. The share of China’s national income derived from the most the top 10% of the population, has increased from 27% in 1978 to 41% in 2015, close to 45% in the US and surpassing 32% in France, according to Stanford Center on the Chinese Economy and Institutions.
Policies and crackdowns on social behavior deemed unacceptable by the ruling Chinese Communist Party have also been observed offline.
In September 2023, Beijing amended laws to ban comments, clothing and symbols that “hurts national sentiments“. In 2022, sports administrators said they would ban new tattoos for members of the national soccer team and advised those who already have them to remove or cover them up.
In August 2020, the Chinese government launched “Operation Empty Plate”, a campaign to stop food and drink waste and cultivate frugality. And in 2018, the government called “comprehensive reform” of the wedding industry to end “vulgar wedding practices” such as expensive wedding gifts, lavish ceremonies and increasingly high bride price demands.
In 2022, China’s National Broadcasting Authority caused controversy when he said it was decided to tackle plastic surgery and the “sissy” aesthetic on television.
