50 Cent Party

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The 50 Cent Party are Internet commentators (网络评论员, 網絡評論員, wǎngluò pínglùn yuán) hired by the government of the People's Republic of China (both local and central) or the Communist Party to post comments favorable towards party policies in an attempt to shape and sway public opinion on various Internet message boards.^[1][2] The commentators are said to be paid for every post that either steers a discussion away from anti-party or sensitive content on domestic websites, bulletin board systems, and chatrooms,^[3] or that advances the Communist party line.^[4][5]

History

In October 2004, the Publicity Department of Changsha started hiring Internet commentators, in one of the earliest known uses of professional Internet commentators.^[6][7]

In March 2005, the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China enacted a systematic censorship of Chinese college bulletin board systems. The popular "Little Lily" BBS, ran by Nanjing University, was forced to close. As a new system was prepared to be launched, school officials hired students as part-time web commentators, paid from the university's work-study funds, to search the forum for undesirable information and actively counter it with Party-friendly viewpoints. In the following months, party leaders from Jiangsu province began hiring their own teams.^[8] By mid-2007, web commentator teams recruited by schools, and party organizations were common across China. Shanghai Normal University employed undergraduates to monitor for signs of dissent and post on university forums.^[9] These commentators not only operate within political discussions, but also in general discussions.^[8][9] Afterwards, some schools and local governments also started to build similar teams.^[10][11][12]

On 23 January 2007, Chinese leader Hu Jintao demanded a "reinforcement of ideological and public opinion front construction and positive publicity" at the 38th collective learning of Politburo.^[13] Large Chinese websites and local governments have been requested to publish the sayings of Hu, and select "comrades with good political quality" to form "teams of Internet commentators" by the CPC Central Committee (中共中央办公厅) and General Office of the State Council (国务院办公厅).^[8][14]

Negative reporting of local authorities has increased on the internet since then.^[15] In one instance described on the China Digital Times, the Jiaozuo (Henan) City Public Security Bureau established a mechanism to analyse public opinion after criticism of the police handling of a traffic incident appeared on the internet. The Bureau responded with 120 staff calling for the truth to be revealed in line with the public opinion, which gradually shifted and eventually supported the police position, denouncing the original poster.^[15][16] In the aftermath of the 2008 Guizhou riot, internet forums were filled with posts critical of the local authorities; the China News Weekly later reported that "the major task of the propaganda group was to organize commentators to past [sic] posts on websites to guide online public opinions."^[16]

In 2010, the Shanghai Communist Youth League's official website published a summary, saying that there were more than 200 topics by Shanghai Municipal Authorities' Internet commentators posted at People's Daily site, Xinhua site, Eastday (东方网), Sina and Tianya after many incidents in 2009, including Lotus Riverside incident, Green Dam software forced installation, Putuo Urban Administrative incident, H1N1's control, Shanghai entrapment incident (钓鱼执法), Pan Rong (潘蓉)'s self-immolation, etc. It was praised by Shanghai Internet Publicity Office.^[17]

Range of operation

The Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China now holds regular training sessions, whose participants are required to pass an exam after which they are issued a job certification.^[8] Some estimates^[1] claim thousands of such commentators while other estimates put their numbers as high as 280,000–300,000.^[8][18]

According to the Chinese Communists' opinions of the recruitment of university Work Committee (tentative), the university Internet commentators are mainly selected from cadres or student cadres at Communist Party Publicity Department of universities, Youth League, Office of Academic Affairs, Network Center, Admissions Employment Department, Political Theory Department, Teaching Department and other units.^[19]

The court of Qinghe District, Huai'an organized a team of 12 commentators.^[20] Gansu Province hired 650 commentators, sorted by their writing abilities.^[21] Suqian Municipal Publicity Department's first 26 commentators' team were reported by Yangtse Evening Post in April 2005.^[22] According to high-profile independent Chinese blogger Li Ming, the pro-Chinese government web commentators must number "at least in the tens of thousands".^[23]

Wen Yunchao (温云超), a formal Internet commentator said that there were about 20 full-time commentators for the local news websites in Guangdong. A county-level discipline inspection commission's Internet commentator estimated more than 100 spare-time Internet commentator in his county, whose population was about 1 million. Hu Yong, an Internet expert from Peking University, said that "the public opinion molders have already penetrated different layers of Chinese society", he found public opinion watchmen that deal with negative information on the forums in tourist city's airport and county-level middle school.^[6]

Amnesty International secretary-general Salil Shetty in March 2011 warned that countries, like China and Iran, were investing "considerable resources into pro-government blogs" in an effort to cement state power.^[23]

Every large Chinese website is instructed by the Information Office to create a trained team of Internet commentators.^[8]

In a leaked propaganda directive to 50 cent party internet commentators, their objective was stated as:^[24][25]

In order to circumscribe the influence of Taiwanese democracy, in order to progress further in the work of guiding public opinion, and in accordance with the requirements established by higher authorities to “be strategic, be skilled,” we hope that internet commentators conscientiously study the mindset of netizens, grasp international developments, and better perform the work of being an internet commentator. For this purpose, this notice is promulgated as set forth below:

(1) To the extent possible make America the target of criticism. Play down the existence of Taiwan.

(2) Do not directly confront [the idea of] democracy; rather, frame the argument in terms of “what kind of system can truly implement democracy.”

(3) To the extent possible, choose various examples in Western countries of violence and unreasonable circumstances to explain how democracy is not well-suited to capitalism.

(4) Use America’s and other countries’ interference in international affairs to explain how Western democracy is actually an invasion of other countries and [how the West] is forcibly pushing [on other countries] Western values.

(5) Use the bloody and tear-stained history of a [once] weak people [i.e., China] to stir up pro-Party and patriotic emotions.

(6) Increase the exposure that positive developments inside China receive; further accommodate the work of maintaining [social] stability.^[24][25]

Salary

The English version of China-based Global Times reported that Changsha Publicity Department's Internet commentators were paid 0.5 yuan per post, which is considered as the origin of the term "50 Cent Party". However, according to the local party-building website, the basic salary of such commentators was 600 yuan in 2006.^[6][7]

In 2010, the Internet commentators from Hengyang Municipal Committee Party School were paid 0.1 yuan per post and less than 100 yuan's monthly bonus.^[26][27]

A county-level discipline inspection commission's Internet commentator from Hunan Province told Global Times that a 500 word article is worth 40 yuan on local websites and 200 yuan on national sites.^[6]

Terms

There is an alternate official term for the Internet Commentator, as well as several unofficial terms coined by netizens for them:

Among those names, "50 Cent Party" (五毛党) is the most common and pejorative unofficial term.^[29] It was created by Chinese netizens as a satire. Many trace the origin of the "50 cent" name to the salaries at the Publicity Department of Changsha, which according to the English version of Global Times, supplemented Internet Commentators' basic income with 50 cents ("5 mao") ^{[Note 1]} per post since October, 2004.^[6]

The term is derogatorily applied by cynical Chinese netizens to any person who blatantly expresses pro-Communist Party thoughts online.^[4] However, there's another word "5 US cents (五美分)" used by some pro-party netizens to denigrate anti-party, pro-democracy comments, with the implication that those commentators are hired by the governments of the United States, Taiwan or other "western" countries. Zhang Shengjun, a professor of international politics at Beijing Normal University published an article Who would be afraid of the cap of "50 Cent Party"? on the Chinese version of Global Times, claiming that spread by western media outfits, "it has become a baton waved towards all Chinese patriots" to make the Chinese government a constant target of criticism.^[6][30]

The Hong Kong-based Apple Daily reported that although a search for "五毛党" ("50 Cent Party" in Chinese) on a search engine produces results, most were inaccessible and had been deleted.^[6]

Effects and opinions

The Washington Post noted a similar practice by John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, in which the campaign registered and rewarded (with book signings and bus rides with the candidate) internet commentators who promoted McCain or his talking points. It described the Chinese version as "[m]ore chilling...".^[31]

The Internet commentator/50 Cent Party's activities were described by CPC General Secretary, Chinese President Hu Jintao as "a new pattern of public-opinion guidance";^[32][33] they represent a shift from erasing dissenting opinions to guiding dialogue since otherwise the "truth may hurt social stability".^[6] In 2010, a contributor to the Huffington Post stated that some comments she received on one of her posts were from the 50 Cent Party;^[34] she also stated that the 50 Cent Party monitors popular US websites, news sites and blogs and posts comments that advance Chinese governmental interests.^[34]

See also

	China portal
	Internet portal

• Internet Water Army, private astroturfing from paid Chinese writers paralleling the 50 Cent Party
• Great Firewall of China, a Chinese "national firewall" Internet censorship system
• Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China
• Web brigades, Russian Internet commentators with a similar role
• Astroturfing

Notes

References

External links

• 50 Cent Party related news and translations on China Digital Times