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Clickbait queen’s social media accounts closed

(Global Times)    14:19, February 22, 2019

Screenshot of Weibo

Media accounts of Mimeng, a popular Chinese blogger dubbed as China's Queen of Self-media or clickbait, were removed on multiple social media platforms.

Ifeng.com announced the shutdown of Mimeng's accounts on the platforms as a result of "taking its responsibilities as the content regulator to crack down on fake information, pessimistic values, cheating for clicks and behavior that purposely splits society."

Jinri Toutiao issued a similar announcement, closing five of her accounts.

Her WeChat account was also revoked on Thursday, 20 days after she announced a two-month suspension of it for misconduct.

Mimeng had 2.6 million Weibo followers and boasted of over 14 million subscribers on her WeChat account in January 2018. According to media reports, she charges advertisers as much as 750,000 yuan ($113,000) for an advertorial.

A WeChat employee reached by the Global Times did not confirm the account was closed by the platform, but referred to a notice issued by ifeng.com and Jinri Toutiao, a news and information platform.

Mimeng's team got in hot water in late January when a fake article Mimeng's team published on their WeChat account sparked widespread outrage.

The article told a story of a poor boy who struggled to enter one of China's top universities, refused "grey income" at work, and finally died of cancer.

The author claimed the article was based on a real story. But netizens soon discovered the story was fake, with many untenable details, and condemned the team for "fooling them for clicks and financial gain, showing no respect for life and suffering."

The revocation of Mimeng's account did not come abruptly as stronger regulations of internet content started in the second half of 2018, Wang Sixin, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Beijing's cyberspace affairs office shut down 110,000 social media accounts by mid-December 2018 for making sensational headlines, containing false information and disturbing public order. The Cyberspace Administration of China said on its website in November that it had punished more than 9,800 self-media accounts popular on WeChat, Weibo or news portals. 

(For the latest China news, Please follow People's Daily on Twitter and Facebook)(Web editor: Wen Ying, Liang Jun)

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