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How China’s internet police went from targeting bloggers to their followers


In recent months, followers of influential liberal bloggers have been interviewed by police as China widens its net of online surveillance

“I don’t think I’ve seen followers of influencers being questioned to this extent in the past,” said Maya Wang, the associate China director at Human Rights Watch. In February, Li Ying, who runs a popular Chinese-language X account, posted an “urgent notice” saying that his followers in China were being called in to “drink tea” with the police, a euphemism for interrogations. In December, Li Tong, an official at the ministry of public security’s cybersecurity bureau said that the government had designated 2024 as “the year of a special campaign to combat and rectify online rumours”.

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