The Social-Media Crackdown China Needs
An explosion of fake accounts and pseudo-influencers threatens e-commerce, not to mention trust among consumers.
As many as 40 percent of accounts may be fake.
Photographer: Brent Lewin/BloombergThere are roughly 337 million users on Weibo, the popular, entertainment-oriented social-media platform owned and operated by China’s Weibo Corp., which reports earnings today. Roughly one-third of those followers have shared or liked the new music video from teen pop idol Cai Xukun since it debuted in January. That’s a remarkable number given how fractious China’s social-media universe can be. It’s also almost certainly bogus.
As a recent documentary from China’s state-owned CCTV network suggested, the groundswell of popularity for Cai’s video was inflated by agencies buying support from fake social-media accounts. While such accounts pose a problem all over the world, they’re thought to total as much as 40 percent of all active users in China. The profusion is warping Chinese e-commerce and entertainment, not to mention eroding trust among consumers. It’s true that Chinese social-media crackdowns have a sorry history. A campaign against fake social-media accounts, however, is one China’s internet users and businesses should really get behind.