China Cracks Down on Online Opinion Makers

HONG KONG â€" These are bad times to be a Big V in China.

“Big V,” for verified account, is the widely used moniker for the most influential commentators on China’s growing microblog sites â€" online celebrities whose millions of fans read, discuss and spread their outpouring of news and opinions, plenty of which chastise or ridicule officials. And the Communist Party has turned against them in the most zealous crackdown on the Internet in years.

Worried about its hold on public opinion, the Chinese government has pursued a propaganda and police offensive against what it calls malicious rumor-mongering online. Police forces across the country have announced the detentions of hundreds of microblog users since last month on charges of concocting and spreading false claims, often politically damaging. For weeks, a torrent of commentaries in the state-run news media have warned popular opinion makers on China’s biggest microblog site, Sina’s Weibo service, to watch their words.

One of the most popular microbloggers, Charles Xue, an American investor of Chinese origin who writes under the name Xue Manzi, was arrested in Beijing on Aug. 23, accused of having sex with a prostitute. He has been paraded on television, contrite in jail clothes. Mr. Xue was due to finish his initial detention by Tuesday, and the police could release him or hold him for extended punishment and investigation, according to Chinese news reports.

But the state news media have already made a point for other outspoken commentators. “The Internet Big V ‘Xue Manzi’ has toppled from the sacred altar,” said the main state-run news agency, Xinhua. “This has sounded a warning bell about the law to all Big V’s on the Internet.”

Officials have described their campaign as urgent surgery to drain toxic lies from the Internet. But critics call that a pretext to tame the entire microblog world, honest as well as dishonest. With more than 500 million registered accounts and about 54 million daily users, Sina Weibo has grown into a raucous forum, instantly spreading news and views on brief messages that can flit past censors.

Big V has become the generic name for influential voices, not all officially verified, on microblogs, especially on Sina’s site. “Weibo” means microblog in Chinese, and other, rival services also use that name.

“We’re only seeing the beginning of this campaign,” said Xiao Qiang, an adjunct professor at the School of Information of the University of California, Berkeley, who studies the Chinese Internet.

“This is going to last at least a few months,” he said. “The other Big V’s will be targeted some way or another. Party leaders, he added, “worry that they have lost control of public opinion on the Chinese Internet. And this round they’ll be much harsher, and the targets will be the more influential people in the Chinese public sphere.”

The campaign is part of the efforts of Xi Jinping, the Communist Party leader appointed in November, to reverse the spread of liberal ideas that challenge one-party rule, observers said. But critics and even some supporters of the crackdown said public distrust of the Chinese state media was so tenacious that more independent voices on the Internet would survive as a source of information and ideas for many.

“You can intimidate people for a while, and those leading voices will be less vocal,” Mr. Xiao said. “But it doesn’t mean that the government wins real credibility among people.”

For now, Mr. Xue has become the most lurid trophy in the party’s effort to undermine the credibility of many Big V’s. Chinese television news shows have broadcast outraged reports about his conduct, including one that lasted three minutes and showed him being arrested and confessing to sexual misdeeds.

Mr. Xue has drawn more than 12 million registered fans to his microblog. Many supporters believe that the police kindled outrage about his sexual behavior because of his sharp criticisms of officials. Even Hu Xijin, an ardently pro-party newspaper editor, agreed. “Using sexual scandal, tax evasion and so on to take down political foes is a hidden rule common among governments worldwide,” wrote Mr. Hu in a comment on his Sina Weibo account that was quickly removed.

Amy Qin and Lucy Chen contributed research.