A clampdown on the twenty-two fan accounts by Chinese social media company Sina Weibo on the rationale that they assume ‘irrational star-chasing behavior’.
The accounts blocked include fans of Korean pop band BTS who raised funds through the platform to customize a jet for the singer Park Ji Min on his 26th birthday. Weibo in a statement called the fundraising for the star ‘an illegal fundraising’ stunt.
The Weibo company said that it will not accept such absurd star-chasing conduct and will deal with it harshly.
They also guaranteed the ‘purification’ and the ‘regulation of the community order’ on its platform.
The BTS account faced a two-month ban on posting whereas other accounts supporting the popular American drama GOT and South Korean-Chinese band EXO were banned for a month.
These recent bans come in the midst of a wider crackdown on the film and entertainment industry.
Recently, two government-based agencies published instructions posing that they would ban the broadcasts of the ‘feminine-looking men’ and ‘vulgar celebrities’ who disregard the values that the country wants to promote.
Earlier in June, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) had listed some measures for the clearance of the ‘chaos’ of celebrity fan clubs.
CAC said that it would ban the activities on media that press the children to fund their idols and will shut down the accounts which happen to be a bad influence on the children. The groups that rank the celebrities on the basis of their popularity will also be banned.
It has been reported that these fan clubs can mobilize to stage protests for their favorite stars. K-pop fans have already organized unbelievable stunts using the impressive number of their followers. They frequently raise funds to promote their idols on billboards in New York’s Times Square.
However, The group has also started political. Using their number they overload the internet with hashtags that were used by the rivals of the Black Lives Matter movement. They also had disrupted Donald Trump’s campaign by reserving tickets online without the intent to use them.
China’s Communist Party is worried about the ever-growing influence of celebrities. The stars and the fan clubs face increasing censorship. One of the most popular actresses of China nearly vanished from China’s internet as her films and TV shows were streamed off and her fan page was deleted by Weibo.
Social media users were also censored when trying to discuss Zhao, who starred in films like My Fair Princess and Shaolin Soccer and served on the jury at the 2016 Venice Film Festival.
Weeks earlier, the actor Zhang Zhehan met a similar fate as all media related to him was erased from the internet after a photo of him surfaced at Japan’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine.
