The ranks of China’s Big V’s are Over the weekend, Chinese authorities ordered Twitter-like microblogging site Weibo to close the account of outspoken former real estate executive and Communist Party member Ren Zhiqiang. The account was shut down because Mr. Ren used it to spread “illegal information” that had a “vile influence,” China’s Internet regulator said, though it didn’t offer details. The retired chairman of Huayuan Property Co. had earlier gone online to criticize Chinese President Xi Jinping’s media policy.
Mr. Ren had 37 million followers on Weibo — more than five times the followers his fellow property mogul Donald Trump has on Twitter — making him one of the biggest of the platform’s verified power users. Mr. Ren is also one of several such users, known as Big V’s, to be kicked off the site after using it to express views outside the country’s increasingly narrow mainstream.
The forced exodus has raised questions about whether Weibo, previously celebrated as a virtual public square for China, can stay relevant in an era of ever tightening censorship. Shares in the Nasdaq-listed company fell more than 5% on Monday, the first trading day after Mr. Ren’s account was suspended. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Below are five of the most influential users to have their Weibo accounts closed since Mr. Xi took office. In most cases, the accounts were closed with no public explanation, so we’ve hazarded our own.
- Ren Zhiqiang, real estate executive
Date erased: Feb. 2016
Number of followers: 37.8 million
Possible reason: The “Big Cannon” challenged Chinese President Xi Jinping’s call for media to serve and protect the Communist Party, saying media should serve taxpayers instead. If media are loyal to the party, he wrote, “then the people will be abandoned in a forgotten corner.”
- Yuan Yulai, lawyer
Date erased: Nov. 2015
Number of followers: Around 20 million
Possible reason: The most popular “die hard” lawyer on Chinese social media, he criticized the government on the environment and ideology, describing promotion of communist ideals as “moving backwards.” He also supported the use of petitioner protests outside of courts in human rights cases (in Chinese), one of the activities cited as justification for a mass round-up of human rights lawyers in July 2015.
- Li Chengpeng, political commentator
Date erased: July 2014
Number of followers: 7.4 million
Possible reason: Mr. Li pulled few punches in going after the government over censorship, corruption, food safety, shoddy school construction and several other issues. In April 2014, he posted a remembrance for Party leader Hu Yaobang, whose death sparked the Tiananmen Square protests 25 years earlier.
- Murong Xuecun, writer
Date erased: May 2013
Number of followers: Around 4 million
Possible reason: A pioneer of online fiction in China, he mocked the party’s secret “seven no’s” rule prohibiting discussion of Western values and the Communist Party’s historical mistakes. In May 2013, he publicly challenged the Internet regulator over the closure of another Weibo user’s account.
- Sun Haiying, actor
Date erased: Nov. 2015
Number of followers: 3.2 million
Possible reason: Sun, a former soldier and a Christian, attacked Mao Zedong on several occasions, at one point repeating a quote from the banned book “The Private Life of Chairman Mao” in which the former leader said the Communist Party was full of walking corpses. He also described the Cultural Revolution as a “crime against humanity” (in Chinese). http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/03/01/chinas-muzzled-microbloggers/
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