After the sudden closure of the Chinese online political forum “Cat’s Eye View” at the end of March, several Chinese military self-publishers have also been blocked recently. While many Chinese netizens lamented the tightening of restrictions on speech, others believed that the authorities were preventing leaks and eliminating “patriotic rumors.
According to discussions on Sina Weibo, a social media platform, the Chinese Communist authorities’ purge of military self-publishers dates back to March 22.
On the afternoon of that day, the large Chinese military forum “Super Base Camp” suddenly announced that it would permanently close four discussion boards, including the navy, air force, army, aerospace and new concept weapons, from the early hours of March 23, effectively shutting down the military equipment discussion board.
Subsequently, “Sina Military”, “military military” and other military WeChat public numbers were also recently shut down for “violations”, and even WeChat’s parent company Tencent’s QQ.com military channel Even the WeChat public WeChat number “Talking about the military” was not spared. Among them, “Military Military” has not been unblocked so far.
At the same time, China’s well-known current affairs and political forum “Cat’s Eye View” was also suddenly closed on March 30.
Many Chinese netizens have left messages on Weibo lamenting the tightening of speech and believing that the authorities intended to guide public opinion to “not talk about national affairs, but only about the wind and the moon”.
However, some people pointed out that military fans often post photos of new military aircraft or warships under construction in military forums, and that most of the blocked military forums involve weapons discussions, most likely due to the authorities’ efforts to prevent leaks.
In addition, some Chinese netizens cited the above-mentioned self-published articles as past mistakes, pointing out that such self-published media often “create patriotic rumors” to incite netizens’ emotions, resulting in the “war wolf sentiment” being amplified by overseas reports, “making it more difficult to handle foreign affairs. The article pointed out that such self-published media often “create patriotic rumors” to incite netizens’ emotions, leading to the amplification of “War Wolf sentiment” by overseas reports, “making it more difficult to handle foreign affairs, and finally being focused on once.
In fact, Zhuang Rongwen, vice minister of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and director of the Office of Network Security and Informatization Commission (ONIC), proposed at a video conference on January 29 to regulate the order of network communication in the national network information system that this year is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC and the opening year of the 14th Five-Year Plan, so it is important to maintain the order of network communication and ensure that “positive energy is abundant” in cyberspace. Network space “positive energy”, “high melody” has special importance.
He asked at that time, regardless of the nature of the platform, communication methods, “adhere to the correct political direction, public opinion guidance and value orientation” in the first place; and stressed the need to focus on strengthening the “self-media” (new media) standardized management, and increase the punishment of illegal accounts and their platforms. It also stressed the need to focus on strengthening the standardized management of “self-media” (new media), increasing the penalties for illegal accounts and the platforms where they are located, so that “supervision grows teeth.
According to Peng Pang News, many self-media and public number operators also received a notice in late January and early February, specifically mentioning that if the account “does not have the relevant qualifications, it is recommended not to compile and publish, comment on and interpret information related to political, economic, military, diplomatic fields and major emergencies, to avoid violating relevant laws and regulations and platform operating norms and causing inconvenience to subsequent The content of the account should not violate the relevant laws and regulations and platform operation norms, and cause inconvenience to the subsequent creation and publication.
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