Grassroots Internet ‘fan clubs’ for Party officials are meeting with official censure. Zhang Feifei writes a special report for the Global Times:
He came hunting for news of “handsome Wang”, officially Wang Yang, the Party secretary of Guangdong Province. Mao Rui instead found a notice on the homepage of the Fans Club for PRC Officials: “Closed ‘for personal reasons’” on February 5.
[…]Both Zhejiang Province and Yiwu information offices declined to explain the closure.
“It looks like the local government still think it’s too early to have such fans’ things,” said Professor Mao Shoulong, associate dean of the Academy of Public Policy in Renmin University of China, Beijing. “They may still worry about some radical comments and reactions of fans on the Internet will endanger the stability of local society.”
Said Professor Liu Qinglong of the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University in Beijing, “A site based on pure grass roots usually lacks efficient management, and communication can easily get out of control.
