Case
The Qinglang Campaign Against Fan Culture
Fan-culture governance linked minors, capital, platform traffic, celebrity morality, and organized mobilization.
Contents
A casting rumor triggered mass account suspensions
In August 2021, online reports said Zhao Liying and Wang Yibo might work together in another television drama. Some Zhao fan accounts organized opposition. A large fan club announced that it would cut ties with the rumored project, and supporters of the two stars attacked one another online. Weibo responded by suspending or closing fan-club accounts, silencing many individual accounts, and suspending the official account of Zhao's studio for failures of fan management.
The website of China's central discipline and supervision authorities later described this as the first mass suspension of a fan group for online fighting after the year's Qinglang campaign began. [3] The action came days before the Cyberspace Administration of China issued stricter rules. It showed that the campaign had moved beyond fraud and excessive spending by minors. Platforms were expected to police fan organization, celebrity studios, and the cultural order around popular entertainment.
Ten CAC measures reorganized fan culture
The CAC launched a two-month fan-culture campaign in June 2021. Its targets included fundraising and spending by minors, abusive fan conflict, doxing, manipulated engagement, and disruption of online communication. On August 25, the CAC general office issued ten further measures. They eliminated rankings for individual celebrities and groups, reduced the weight of likes and comments in work rankings, banned paid voting, ordered platforms to clear fundraising groups, and restricted minors from tipping, spending on support campaigns, or managing fan groups. [2]
The notice also changed the status of fan organizations. A fan-club account needed authorization from a celebrity's agency or studio, which became responsible for supervision and maintenance. Unauthorized individuals and organizations could no longer register fan-club accounts. Platforms had to regulate agencies' accounts, commercial promotion, crisis response, and fan management. Voluntary user groups entered a vertical chain in which platforms supervised studios and studios supervised fan clubs.
Some measures addressed obvious exploitation. Platforms and entertainment companies had profited from traffic rankings, paid voting, repeated purchases, and fundraising while presenting impulsive spending and fan conflict as user misconduct. Banning paid votes, hiding individual purchase rankings, and removing doxing or abuse had identifiable victims and a defensible public purpose.
The CAC extended the campaign beyond those harms. Its notice instructed local Party cyberspace offices to approach fan governance from the standpoint of online political and ideological security. It also made content orientation, unhealthy culture, and celebrity image subjects of management. [2] Consumer protection, online abuse, and political loyalty entered the same campaign, allowing regulation to expand from conduct into culture and group organization.
Platforms carry censorship risk while users pay for over-removal
The campaign moved through administrative pressure. The CAC instructed local Party cyberspace offices. Local regulators pressed platforms. Platforms acted against studios, fan clubs, chat groups, and individual accounts. Government agencies controlled fines, meetings, and business rectification, while platforms controlled recommendations, trending lists, payments, groups, and accounts. Political demands reached users through product controls.
Broad terms such as correct orientation and disruption of communication give platforms little advance certainty. Allowing an account that regulators later condemn can bring an official summons. The cost of removing lawful discussion falls mainly on users. Platforms therefore have strong incentives to suspend first, close groups, and eliminate features. Zhao's studio was punished for failing to control fan communities even though the studio had not authored the attacks. Responsibility expanded from a person committing misconduct to celebrities, agencies, and platforms.
This system gives the CCP more control than case-by-case deletion. Platforms redesign products in anticipation of policy. Studios monitor fan clubs. Group managers suppress discussions before they attract official attention. Once censorship operates inside the community, regulators can govern large populations without reviewing every argument.
Child protection opened the door to ideological rectification
Protection of minors supplied the campaign's strongest public justification. Platforms should prevent students from being induced to make large purchases, raise money for celebrities, lose sleep voting, or join online attacks. The CCP merged those harms with capital, traffic stars, incorrect values, and political security. A question about a child's spending became a decision about which values the entertainment industry must carry, which celebrities remain visible, and how fans may organize.
The CCP Constitution places propaganda and ideological work under Party leadership. [1] The Patriotic Education Law adopted in 2023 assigns education duties to schools, families, publishers, media, and online platforms. [4] These rules place the 2021 campaign within a larger project of political education. The CCP grants no independent boundary to youth culture. A community that gathers young people, builds identity, or organizes collective action becomes subject to Party direction.
Recognizing this does not romanticize fan clubs. Most center on consumption and entertainment, and some have engaged in bullying or manipulation. Those genuine abuses made expansion easier. The Party began with conduct many people disliked, then swept unauthorized organization, disfavored values, and uncontrolled traffic into the same rectification drive.
The durable result was a new control structure
The 2021 measures changed rankings, voting, fundraising, and fan-club authorization. They reduced some visible paid voting and mass abuse. Public records do not establish the long-term effect of every measure or prove that every suspended account carried political content. Individual cases still require platform notices, original posts, and appeal records.
The central directive itself establishes the larger point. It openly connected minors, commercial platforms, and ideological security. The CCP ordered platforms to shape celebrity images, the orientation of works, and youth culture, going well beyond prevention of fraud and harassment. Fan disorder supplied the justification, platform responsibility supplied the machinery, and political security allowed the boundary to keep moving.
Sources
Constitution of the Communist Party of Chinaprimary-recordLive
Notice on Further Strengthening Governance of Fan-Culture Disorderprimary-recordUnchecked
The Era of Traffic Stars Has Turned a Pageprimary-recordUnchecked
Patriotic Education Law of the People's Republic of ChinaUnchecked
China Media Project CCP dictionaryUnchecked