This generation spends a lot of time watching videos of sports and entertainment; research firm Analysys International says more than 70% of China’s mobile-video users are under 30 and nearly three-quarters of them watch at least one to two hours of video everyday. Consciously or otherwise, many pay little attention to politics.
Their indifference is being shaken up now. Under President Xi Jinping’s more assertive guidance, the Communist Party is trying to instill patriotism and reinsert ideology into public life. Instead of American TV situation comedies, Beijing wants Chinese youth to watch revolutionary-themed series and other politically inspiring fare.
The effect is unsettling for many young Chinese—and for the online companies building businesses catering to them.
“It feels like the government is yelling into your ears about its existence every day now,” says Gloria Liu, a 23-year-old law graduate student in the northeastern city of Changchun.
Storm clouds have been gathering for some time. Earlier this year, Chinese video websites pulled popular South Korean music videos and TV dramas after Beijing clashed with Seoul over its deployment of a U.S. missile-defense system. Last month, after meeting with regulators, social-media sites deleted many entertainment and celebrity-gossip accounts.
The real blow came last week when video-streaming sites Bilibili and AcFun—popular among teenagers and young Chinese—removed most of their U.S., U.K., Japanese and South Korean movies, TV dramas and shows to comply with what they say are regulatory requirements.
On social media, young people said they were “shocked” and “confused” and “powerless” when they found out their bookmarked videos on those sites had disappeared overnight.
Bilibili says all of its content is being reviewed to ensure it meets regulatory standards and that foreign films and TV shows comprise only about 10% of all content. AcFun says the company is making changes based on the regulator’s guidance and its site won’t carry any illegal or inappropriate content.
The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television didn’t respond to a request for comment.
This curtailing of content is hitting businesses that, according to industry people, aren’t yet profitable.
Both Bilibili and AcFun started out catering to animation fans and then expanded into more mainstream content. Viewers can post real-time comments that scroll across the screen—a huge draw for the young audience.
Bilibili, founded in 2010 and owned by Shanghai Hode Information Technology, says it has 150 million monthly active users, three-fourths of whom are below the age of 24. AcFun, which was launched in 2007 and has Alibaba Group Holding ’s Youku Tudou video site as an investor, declined to disclose user numbers. Both companies, which rely on advertising and games for revenue, declined to comment on their profitability.
The latest crackdown, if sustained, is likely to affect their revenues, according to investors. It has already poured cold water on investing in other online entertainment startups, one of the hottest plays over the past two years because of the demand from millennials.
Investors feel “anxious and powerless” about the current situation, says a venture capitalist whose fund suspended negotiations with startups creating online entertainment content.
Upset fans aren’t taking to the streets; so far their protests are confined to social media. But the forced changes to their viewing diets are causing some to rethink their relationship with a government seen largely as a distant presence until now.
Ms. Liu, the law student, views herself as patriotic, like many of her generation. She’s also a fan of South Korean pop culture, especially the K-Pop band EXO. She taught herself Korean and uploaded subtitled shows and media coverage of the band on Bilibili. Now, she says, the website no longer allows uploading of these videos.
While she can still use circumvention software to bypass government internet filters to access videos on Korean sites, it isn’t the same experience as watching the shows with other fans and messaging each other in real time on Bilibili. In the past, she didn’t blame the government for the nuisance of internet controls, or for her disappointment when K-Pop stars couldn’t attend promotional events in China after the recent missile-defense dispute.
When Ms. Liu traveled abroad as a college student, she would explain to people that China was becoming a better country. “Now I feel like I was lying to myself,” she says.
Frank Guo, a marketing executive at an online-game company in the southern city of Guangzhou who studied in Ireland, says he doesn’t understand why the government doesn’t trust people to be responsible for their own viewing behavior.
Like Ms. Liu, Mr. Guo thought the government was a remote force. “Now it’s infiltrating every detail of your life, including what entertainment you watch,” he says.
Source: Wall Street Journal by Li Yuan
