China’s ‘Clean Net’ campaign targets ‘negative emotions’ in annual online purge

As China settles into its “golden week” National Day holiday, the country’s cyber watchdogs are hard at work scouring the internet for negative sentiment, and handing out harsh penalties or imposing bans on influential online figures and social media platforms.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said on Monday that the latest round of its “Clean Net” campaign aimed to “crack down on malicious incitement of negative emotions” and “create a more civilised and rational online environment”.

In a statement, the administration listed a wide range of targets for this year’s campaign, including: “inciting extreme group antagonism”; forcibly linking social issues with identity, region and gender; “spreading negative and pessimistic emotions” such as referring to education or hard work as “useless”; and “selling anxiety-inducing content and courses related to employment, dating and education”.

While Beijing’s efforts to censor the internet are not new, analysts say the latest two-month crackdown is different as it specifically targets online behaviour that regulators blame for triggering or exacerbating negative emotions.

Authorities have also placed the responsibility for curbing such behaviour at the doorstep of China’s internet companies.

In September, the CAC worked with local agencies to investigate five social media platforms, including RedNote and Weibo, for “failing to implement their primary responsibility for information content management” and “promoting celebrities’ personal activities and trivial matters”.

South China Morning Post