Social garbage

I read this morning that the Chinese authorities have cracked down on social media, cleaning out what they regard as anti-social content. Which category appears to include porn, libel, advertising luxury life styles and any kind of political dissent. Wholesome stories about the everyday lives of decent people like mushroom farmers are in. With the caption to the picture above being: 'Mushroom farmer Wang Jing Wang is one of the many internet stars whose educational videos are popular on China’s Douyin platform © Douyin'. The suggestion is that quite a lot of people in China like wholesome.

Now while it is true that what we are pleased to call the free press is a bulwark of sorts against abuse by overmighty governments, corporations and individuals, it is also true that the likes of Microsoft, Google and Facebook, indirectly promote all kinds of widely read anti-social content because such content generates revenue earning clicks on advertisements. Some people might like wholesome, but lots of other people like to be entertained with scurrilous tripe, some of which they end up believing. Just think of the long life of the News of the World, a paper which started out in 1843, to be killed off by Murdoch in 2011, having gone a bit too far, even for him.

So it will be interesting to watch, in the years to come, how all this plays out.

PS: Microsoft also appear to be very cosy with the Daily Express, which last provides a lot of the click-bait which powers its news feed. The Express was once the property of a former pornographer and is now the property of Reach PLC. I have not yet bottomed out whether the pornographer in question and Reach PLC are the same thing. Not identical, as the latter has publicly traded shares.

References 

Reference 1: China’s social media influencers play safe with wholesome content Beijing’s efforts to control online culture have increased since Xi’s ‘common prosperity’ drive - Eleanor Olcott, Financial Times - 2021. 28th December.

Reference 2: https://www.douyin.com/. They might do mushroom farms, but there is also a fair amount of leg to be seen. Quite a few white faces (and legs) too.