WeChat Social Media Forced To Leave China

JAKARTA - WeChat's social media have had to leave their home country. The reason is because this social network is thought to spread fake news, hate speech and conspiracy theories with the United States (US).

Launching the South China Morning Post, Wednesday, May 27, this incident began when the Cyberspace Administration of China started a new campaign to clean up misinformation and conspiracy theories on the Chinese internet.

Relations between China and the US have hit lows in recent months, as the two countries clash with trade, the coronavirus and Beijing's move to impose new security regulations on Hong Kong.

Social media experts in China argue that nationalist groups and opportunistic businesses have attributed the bad relationship and exploited social media to spread lies and encourage anti-US messages within it.

"The US has processed the corpse from the COVID-19 disease into hamburgers," said one WeChat user who comes from one of the Scholar Forums, Zhidao Xuegong, which has millions of followers on the Chinese social media platform.

According to Xigua Data, a company that tracks traffic on Chinese social media accounts, the well-known Scholar forum has more than 1.7 million pages for 17 articles published in April.

In an article published earlier this month entitled "Nearly Dead: the Sinking of the US" written by Mr. Cloud it claims that COVID-19 may have killed one million people in the US and that the bodies are very likely processed into frozen or processed meat. into cooking.

"Cannibalism has existed in the US before and just a few dozen years ago, Americans ate blacks, Indians and Chinese," the authors continued.

After it went public, the article had at least 100,000 readers, with 753 giving money to support the account. Currently, of course, the Chinese government immediately closes the account because it fabricates facts, triggers xenophobia and misleads the public.

In fact, WeChat is not completely out of China, this super platform will only close social media channels that have the potential to spread disinformation and hoaxes of a prophetic tone. WeChat itself has blocked more than seven accounts related to Zhidao Xuegong.

Where these accounts are managed commercially that try to take advantage of Chinese nationalists, by clouding the current political atmosphere that is currently heating up with the US regarding the origins of the corona virus.

Zhidao Xuegong stands out for appealing to super nationalism and xenophobia by publishing articles such as "Why learning English makes you stupid." Where the account page is managed by Jiangsu Hualou Xipan Culture Media, a company owned by the Shanghai Dianze Culture Development Company.

While the fake news spread by Zhidao Xuegong does not represent China's official views, its content has the potential to cause diplomatic problems. Earlier, in March, an individual named Xue Yumin in Fujian province published hundreds of fake reports about the coronavirus through a WeChat account run by three companies.

Then shortly, WeChat immediately closed more than 50 related accounts for exaggerating the facts and misleading people. Tencent, which owns WeChat, said it had closed 2,500 accounts and closed another 20,000 accounts for fake news since the COVID-19 outbreak began.

Meanwhile, China claims to have the most advanced censorship system in the world, but misinformation and sensational content are still running wild on the internet.