Chinese Cracks Down on Social Media Influencers Flaunting Lavish Lifestyles

Flaunting a lavish life-style to advertise materialism can get you thrown off social media in China.

Since April, China has been busy cracking down on influencers who promote ostentatious life as a way of gaining revenue.

China’s web regulator, Our on-line world Administration of China, launched a marketing campaign final month to discourage social media customers from “intentionally showcasing a lavish life-style constructed on wealth,” the Financial Times reported.

One influencer who’s been a casualty of the crackdown is Wang Hongquanxing, who’s been dubbed “China’s Kim Kardashian” and had 4.3 million followers on the Chinese language model of TikTok, Douyin, the report mentioned.

Others, together with “Sister Abalone,” who had over 2 million followers and gave excursions of her luxurious properties, and “Mr Bo,” who posted about luxurious items, have additionally had their accounts restricted, per the FT.

Platforms like Weibo, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu introduced a wave of measures to curb ostentatious habits on Might 15.

Weibo’s checklist of conduct that would see influencers barred contains exhibiting off luxurious properties and automobiles to advertise merchandise, flaunting massive quantities of money, and posting minors utilizing luxurious items to “appeal to visitors and hype.”In 2021, China launched similar measures to curb influencers posting “unethical” content material.

The Our on-line world Administration of China announced on the time that celebrities might now not “showcase wealth” or “extravagant pleasure” on social media.China has additionally clamped down on influencers posting fabricated tales on-line.

Influencer “Thurman Maoyibei” had her Doyin, Weibo, and BiliBili accounts seized in April after she shared a fake story of a boy whose homework books went lacking, BBC Information reported.In the video, which went viral, she reportedly claimed {that a} espresso store employee in Paris gave her two homework books that belonged to a Chinese language scholar and mentioned she’d return them to him.

This led to a viral hashtag and marketing campaign to search out the coed.

China’s Ministry of Public Safety mentioned the incident was a “typical instance” of it taking motion towards misinformation, the BBC reported.In keeping with the report, the influencer apologized for “polluting the web,” and police mentioned she and her firm might obtain a warning or detention as punishment.

Weibo, Douyin and Xiaohongshu didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark from Enterprise Insider, made exterior regular working hours.

By Jyoti Mann