China: influencers under surveillance

Influencers in China who have become real public figures, adored by their fans. Some are followed by tens of millions of subscribers. A notoriety monitored very closely by the authorities, particularly since some of these influencers have launched into covering the news, by creating their media on the most popular social networks in China, such as Douyin, Weibo or Wechat.

It’s about politics, economics, social facts. A phenomenon likely to represent a risk in the eyes of the Beijing regime which exercises very strict control over information. And it is therefore in this context that a new rule has just come into force: these influencers, in any case those who have a lot of subscribers (more than 500,000 for example for Douyin), are now obliged to display their true identity, first and last name on their pages.

Officially, the aim is to make them responsible for avoiding fake news and disinformation, but this new measure is also an obvious way of putting pressure on these bloggers. Once their name becomes public, they can quickly find themselves harassed by thousands of Internet users. One of these influencers also announced this week that he had deleted a large part of his fans, to avoid having to publish his identity on his digital content.

Defense of traditional values

Beyond the purely political aspect, there are also the conservative values ​​defended by the communist regime. Family values, respect for Chinese traditions, not really in line with the behavior of certain influencers. The Chinese authorities are waging war, for example, on tattoos or the clothing of certain men, considered effeminate.

The regime does not hesitate to simply remove certain influencers from social networks. This is what happened to K-Pop superstar Lisa, who was suddenly banned from the Weibo network a few days ago. No explanation was given, but some of his fans see this as the consequence of the star’s recent visit to Crazy Horse in Paris.