With their first kill, a 16 year old who postulated that a bar manager didn't commit suicide, but was beaten to death has been arrested under the new laws. Alleging a cover-up by the local police, the middle school student was black bagged for spreading rumors online. Apparently ignorant of the Streisand Effect, the arrests and fines that were imposed have led to more coverage than the actual stories the bloggers were writing about.
Celebrities have been feeling the pinch too, anxious to avoid any run ins with the law, the good folks of China are duly self-censoring.
“I feel the pressure, I am more careful about posting about any kind of topic,” said Wang Xiaoshan, a movie actor whose microblog has over one million followers.
“There have always been limits, but now it’s more serious, you could end up in jail,” he added.
Without rumors and gossip, a neutered Weibo just turns into an advertising platform. No one uses a social network to be influenced by ad men, people flock to these platforms to get a taste of the subversive. Juicy tidbits posted under assumed names make the network worthwhile, the cloak and dagger nature of Weibo make it the success that it is. With no gossip, rumor or hearsay, the platform quickly loses it's appeal and goes into rapid decline.
The heavy handed response to online rumor mongering, that is, the posting of unofficial news, only illustrates how out of touch the government really is when it comes to dealing with the Internet generation. Applying the old tactics that used to work against print media just isn't going to work when it comes to a microblogging platform with millions of users.
The aging Politburo (the average age of incoming members is 61) is struggling to keep up in the Internet era. True, in an effort to stop the state being run by a gang of elderly, out of touch men, there is a mandatory retirement age (of 70), but to have sixty-year-olds police the Internet isn't going to result in anything that could be deemed as sensible.
Chasing bloggers down might send a short term chilling effect, but the more motivated, more dangerous dissidents will be driven underground. Rather than creating a false sense of security for those who continue to post messages critical of the government, it's the CCP itself that is being blinded by the illusion of a job well done. Arresting teenagers might send the message to other party members that the Standing Committee is really serious about getting everyone to toe the line, but showing the population at large exactly how ruthless they can be will only foment more anti-Party sentiment.
The CCP had elected to take the worst possible route in dealing with unauthorized information spreading on social networks. Presenting themselves as a Soviet-era cast off to an entire cross section of the population that is more interested in smartphones and iPads is doing nothing to help secure their future in China.
The false sense of security that is generated from arresting kids not old enough to drive yet might make the Politburo feel more comfortable, but increasingly desperate attempts to put the genie back into bottle only serve to highlight how really out of touch China's leaders really are.
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