If your business is — well, in the business of deleting negative posts about a company (particularly a publicly-traded company) — and getting rich for doing so — well, now you could be in a little bit of trouble.
“This is a big problem which has endangered the interests of the masses. They don’t like it. It must be solved so cyberspace is clearer.” So thinks not only the Chinese National Internet Office, but also the Ministry of Industry and Information, the State Administration of Press, Publishing, Radio, Film and TV, as well as the Ministry of Public Security (you read that right, the Chinese police even). In a 21 January 2015 announcement, they’ve decided to dedicate around half a year to solve this issue.
Lu Wei, head of the Chinese National Internet Office, “politicised” the issue of deleting posts for companies against a charge as “implementing the important essence of Xi Jinping’s speeches”. Basically, the Chinese government wants to know how transparent you are (this is nothing sci-fi, by the way). If you’re “glorious” because of hard work, fine; but if your “glory” is the result of a whole slew of negative posts about you being deleted, you’ve a problem.
They’re serious, by the way: the official Xinhua News Agency (link in simplified Chinese) wants the Chinese government’s Internet police be a “strong corps of Internet managers”. (Some of us in the more freer parts of the world might not like that kind of rhetoric.) Fact is: if you’re in the biz that rewrites history by deleting the more negative aspects, you’re going to have Lu and Xi being set after you.
At the risk of putting us in harm’s way… What, then, are we going to do about parts of “recent” Chinese history that appear problematic? Oh well, there’s never been a country with a completely clean slate. The writing on the wall is probably this: Everyone makes mistakes; if you’re transparent about it, you’ll come clean. But if you fake it, you risk it…
If you feel like the kind of “good comrade” who want to bring down one of the businesses that cleans up after corrupt companies for a living, let the mandarins at 12377.cn know. You might qualify for a prize of up to RMB 50,000 — although we’re not sure how you’ll think about that…
