When the sound becomes a weapon

From Chinese singer Leehom Wang-pointing out online regulatory problems in China

Cyberbullying” by Infosec Images is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

“Lies can circle the earth in half a minute, but the truth often takes a little more time”-Leehom Wang

In the past, the voice was mainly in the hands of a few elites and mainstream media, and it was difficult for ordinary people to speak out in public opinion. However, with the development of the Internet, social media platforms such as Weibo and TikTok have gradually become an important way for public expression and information exchange in Chinese people’s daily life.

These platforms not only provide users with space for entertainment and recreation, but also the huge user base has given birth to a new social phenomenon — Cyber-bullying. In the tide of public opinion, individuals generally trigger emotional discussion to become the target of public criticism, and Internet incidents occur frequently. This blog will introduce the problem of public awareness of the loss of control and insufficient supervision of the platform

Who is Leehom Wang ?

Leehom Wang’s position in the Chinese music industry cannot be underestimated. His song styles span the fields of pop, R & B, hip hop and rock, shaping a variety of musical styles. Fanatic fans often compare him with Jay Chou. In 2018, CNN called him the “King of Chinese pop music”, affirming its outstanding status and global influence in the Chinese music industry.

In the 13 years since Leehom Wang joined Sony Records, 12 albums have sold more than 10 million copies in Asia, earning about 1.1 billion yuan for SONY. These musical works show Wang Leehom’s huge market influence.

“Kiss Goodbye” is a resident repertoire of Leehom Wang’s concert

王力宏 Kiss Goodbye (Official Video Karaoke) (youtube.com)

Timeline of Cyber-bullying on Leehom Wang

1. December 15, 2021

Wang said in a statement on his Weibo account that he and Li have decided to divorce due to different life plans, but they will still raise their children together.

王力宏回应离婚by澎湃新闻is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

2. December 17,2021 (The begain of Cyber-bullying)

Wang’s ex-wife, Jinglei, posted a long post on Weibo, accusing Wang of cheating during her marriage, being humiliated and violent by the Wang family, triggering public opinion. According to the article, Wang not only maintained multiple improper relationships after marriage, but also missed important moments of his child for a long time.

李靓蕾发长文控诉王力宏出轨 被王家人羞辱冷暴力by上游新闻is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

3. December 18,2021 (Wang’s commercial loss & Other victims were caught in the storm)

Wang only spoke for Infiniti for 30 hours before being termination.

英菲尼迪与王力宏终止合作！仅代言35小时，网友：日抛型？by澎湃新闻is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

BY-2 member Yumi was involved in the storm, Jinglei called as the object of Wang’s cheating.

BY2妹妹回应王力宏事件：结婚前交往过无不正当关系 李靓蕾质疑by腾讯娱乐is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

3. December 19,2021

Wang’s father wrote a letter to explain.

王力宏爸爸深夜发布手写信，李靓蕾反击by澎湃新闻is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Jinglei Immediately responded to Wang of not being responsible, hiding behind his father, let the elderly father appeared in public and lying.

王力宏爸爸深夜发布手写信，李靓蕾反击by澎湃新闻is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

4. 20 December, 2021 (Cyber-bullying on Leehom Wang reached its peak)

Jinglei said psychologists believe Wang has sexual problems such as sexual addiction and narcissistic personality.

李靓蕾再回应！公开离婚协议，曝王力宏“性成瘾”“自恋型人格”by盖饭娱乐is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

5. 21 December, 2021 (Cyber-bullying on Leehom Wang reached its peak)

Chinese media showed a situation of all the online criticism against Leehom Wang. According to the data, the total number of information entries related to Leehom Wang’s incident reached 397,20,000, of which 42% of the online emotions were negative, with numerous negative comments on Wang Leehom.

6. 23 June, 2023

Leehom Wang won the divorce lawsuit. The Supreme Court of New York granted the request for divorce, and the court found no content in the document to prove that the man of the marriage was at fault.

尘埃落定！王力宏李靓蕾离婚官司终判决!by烹小鲜is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Two years of online violence has brought significant psychological pressure, reputation and business loss to singer Leehom Wang. Then the ex-wife, Jinglei, only posted a blog on the Internet platform to guide public opinion as the mother of the three children and carry out online violence to the victims. Leehom Wang During the two-year period, he suspended all his commercial activities, including the release of new songs and commercial endorsements. Wang’s ex-wife Jinglei frequently voiced accusations on the Internet and even emphasized Wang’s mental problems to guide public opinion to attack. Finally, thanks to the investigation and statement of the judicial department, they supported the Leehom Wang divorce proceedings and declared that the marriage was not wrong because of the man. That was the end of the two years of online violence experienced by Leehom Wang. We can not help but wonder, whether the relevant departments of the Internet in China have not made effective regulatory measures for two years?

Some problems of Internet regulation in China

1. Self-regulation of the Internet industry

According to the self-report of a pre-microblog examiner in the BBC, we can find it. The censorship sors of microblogs do not have a complete training and guidance manual, and almost block some keywords and sensitive words according to the orders of their superiors. This suggests that online platforms have difficulty filtering out harmful comments like Wang from the noise. Without strong filtering mechanisms, the self-regulation of the Internet can lead to excessive exposure to inflammatory content. As Piezunka & Dahlander say, in the context of social media, because algorithms often amplify controversial content to increase user engagement, thus increasing visibility into inflammatory material. This eventually creates a disgusting cycle that more extreme views get more attention.

Crowdsourcing work is difficult to predict the transmission rate of sensitive topics. The Wang controversy is an example. After Wang’s ex-wife posted a false defamation blog, the Weibo platform had no prevention mechanism to deal with unexpected public reactions, which made the platform did not strike a balance between free speech and responsible content management.

Beyond that, Internet users involved in sensational events such as celebrity scandals often encounter unregulated echo chambers, and controversial narratives persist without corrective supervision. Such an echo chamber of the Internet platform will intensify the existing perception of social media users, which exposes the limitations of crowdsourcing audit in maintaining fairness and transparency.

Chinese social media platforms are often committed to promoting rapid participation, at the expense of deliberate review processes. In the case of Wang Leehom, his ex-wife continued to explain the dispute while waiting for the final decision of the law. Internet platforms have not actively stopped this behavior, and this uncontrolled viral transmission trend has led to chronic digital harassment, reflecting the lack of active risk mitigation measures on Internet platforms.

2. Government regulation

China’s real-name system policy aims to link users’ online behavior to their offline identities to reduce harmful comments and enhance user responsibility. However, the policy has not been implemented consistently. Although platforms such as Sina Weibo strictly restricted anonymous behavior at the beginning, they gradually relaxed the restrictions, leading to a great reduction in the effect of the real-name system. It is in this lax execution environment that cyber violence (such as Wang Leehom’s long-term cyber-bullying) occurs constantly, and the perpetrators do not need to bear any responsibility.

Even under the constraints of the real-name system, users can still evade regulation through cross-platform transfers. For example, some users will transfer malicious behavior to other platforms such as wechat to evade the scrutiny of public platforms such as Weibo. This shows that despite the existence of authentication measures, the lack of collaborative governance between different platforms leads to the continued dissemination of harmful content. The Leehom Wang incident shows that the single-platform review mechanism is difficult to effectively curb large-scale harmful behavior.

The real-name policy, which was designed to improve accountability by tracking user identities, also hinders user reporting and criticism. To some extent, anonymity can encourage the public to express dissatisfaction and supervise governance, but the excessive implementation of the real-name system limits the enthusiasm of the public participation. Ironically, this undermines the government’s goal of using public opinion to improve governance. In the Leehom Wang case, the real-name policy did not effectively control online violence, but intensified the contradiction between accountability on social media and user privacy protection.

Summary

The problem of cyber-bullying in China is quite serious, but the lag of platform regulation is also obvious. According to the survey, 60% of respondents had experienced online violence, while more than 70% said it caused psychological harm, even depression or suicide. Under such a serious Internet regulatory problem, China’s Internet platforms still have the problem of insufficient self-regulation, and the Chinese government has been unable to implement effective regulatory measures to curb the occurrence of online violence.

No one knows whether tomorrow’s victims of cyber bullyng will be themselves.