Chinese netizens are not allowed to talk about political and social issues, and recently even entertainment topics have become the focus of regulation. The Chinese Communist Party’s Internet Information Office recently launched a special network operation. The focus is on cracking down on five types of “rice circle” behavior, mainly fans of underage celebrities. Some scholars believe that the authorities are attempting to combat the chaos of the so-called “rice circle” to guide the value orientation of minors.
The Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s Network Security and Information Technology Commission recently launched a so-called crackdown on fan groups targeting minors. The public WeChat of NetNewsChina issued a notice on Tuesday (15) that for some time, the “rice circle” fan groups have been tearing each other apart and making rumors and attacks on the Internet, damaging the clear network ecology and adversely affecting the physical and mental health of minors. In response, the Central Internet Information Office has decided to launch a two-month nationwide special operation to “clean up the ‘rice circle’ chaos” from now on.
In an interview with Radio Free Asia on Wednesday, Song Hao, a law scholar from Zhejiang province who is concerned about the current state of China’s Internet, said that the authorities are cracking down on online speech with the so-called rectification of the mess in the rice circle, which marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China in July.
“Among these so-called rice circle chaos listed by the Central Internet Information Office, there is also the violation of privacy, which itself is regulated by corresponding laws in China. This time, the so-called special operation is still a campaign-style enforcement, replacing the rule of law with an anti-rule of law campaign, once again.”
The CPC Internet Information Office said that the special operation will target the outstanding problems of the online “rice circle”, focusing on key aspects such as celebrity lists, popular topics, fan communities, interactive comments, etc., to comprehensively clean up the “rice circle” of fans tearing each other up and hurling insults, stomping on each other to induce war, provoking confrontation, and Insults and slander, rumor attacks, malicious marketing and other types of harmful information.
The rice circle and entertainment circle touched the “red line”
Zhejiang film and television culture circle, Miss Zhu told the station that the focus of the Office of Internet Information this rectification, mainly for young people.
“Now the central government to tighten the totalitarian power, is an industry, an industry tightening, who ventured to collect who first. Now collect the rice circle and entertainment circle, entertainment circle to crack down on high salaries, such as Zheng Shuang (tax case), etc., the rice circle is mainly the previous incident of pouring milk, touching a lot of negative comments, most importantly, touching the central government last year proposed to save food policy.”
This time, the Internet Information Office focused on combating five types of “rice circle” behavior, including inducing minors to support the collection of funds, high consumption, rumor attacks, flesh search, invasion of privacy, “rice circle” fans climbing to show off their wealth, creating topics and other forms of interference with public opinion, affecting the communication order behavior etc.
Ms. Zhu, who is familiar with the culture of the entertainment industry, said that the authorities’ move is aimed at cultivating the so-called party-loving and patriotic youth and swaying the values of young people. She cited the following example
To protect the Eleventh Party Day at the expense of killing the livelihood of the entire entertainment industry
“Now all the rice circles, all Chinese talent shows have been stopped, affecting the rice bowls of many Chinese people, and even foreign countries, such as South Korea, who actually have many companies that specialize in selling variety show rights to China, have been affected.”
As for why the Netizen Office is purging the rice circle, which has a majority of young fans, at the moment. Legal scholar Song Hao told the station.
“This is closely related to the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China this year, and they are particularly worried about the so-called murmurings at a time of historical significance. It affects his so-called joyful and peaceful atmosphere. The so-called rice circle chaos actually does not have any political properties and does not pose a threat to the security of the regime.”
But even so, the authorities still can’t let go. Song Hao said.
“Entertainment, leisure, culture and other such areas, the authorities have now also felt uneasy. The Internet authorities are trying to find ways to lead young people toward entertainment and advocate that young people should not care about politics and human rights and look toward money.”
Recently, young netizens are popularly discussing the phenomenon of “lying flat”, and the official media has accused the promotion of “lying flat” of seriously affecting China’s economic development, and the Internet has begun to restrict the discussion in this regard.
Note: “rice” comes from the harmonic sound of “fans” in English, which means enthusiasts and fans. Rice is short for fan circle.
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