China’s Cyberspace Administration yesterday announced a two-month campaign to quash netizens who “maliciously incite negative emotions”.
The administration’s announcement of the campaign explains it will target social media platforms, short video services, the livestreaming platforms used by Chinese e-commerce sites to host infomercials and even delve into comments left across the internet.
Some of the material Beijing wants to root out – such as content that incites violence – would likely fall foul of content moderators in many nations.
However, China also wants to stop “excessively exaggerating negative and pessimistic sentiment” through content that includes themes such as “"hard work is useless" and "studying is useless."
Those sentiments are typical of “Sang culture,” a years-long trend that sees some Chinese youth express defeatism and dissatisfaction because they feel it’s hard to get ahead. Such sentiments stem from the high cost of living in some Chinese cities, and the tepid state of the economy, which means even well-educated young people sometimes struggle to find stimulating work.
China’s social networks, like those elsewhere, feed users more of what they like. It’s therefore easy to go down a Sang rabbit hole.
The administration’s crackdown therefore targets those who “promote negative outlooks on life such as world-weariness” or “excessively belittle themselves or exaggerate depressed and negative emotions, causing people to follow suit.”
The beatings will continue until the morale improves.