Li Jiaqi, one of China's biggest Internet influencers, with over 170 million followers on multiple platforms (TikTok and Sina Weibo) earning him an estimated $10–$20 million per month ....
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| Li Jiaqi And Tank Ice Cream |
..... fell foul of China's censors, when on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre on the 3rd of June 2022 he was livestreaming a show to millions of followers..
In it he was seen innocently promoting a tank shaped ice-cream cake .... when around 9 pm, the livestream on his Weibo account ended abruptly. Shortly afterwards, he posted on his Weibo account saying he had merely faced technical issues, but the show was not resumed, and he missed three shows during one of the year's biggest on-line shopping festivals.
Older viewers were aware of why he had been shut down, but couldn't risk mentioning it, except by the most covertly coded phrases, but China's many millennials and Generation Z-ers have grown up unaware of the events in 1989, as the subject has been scrubbed from public record. They are genuinely confused as to why their idol has been shut down. A confused viewer asked "What does the tank mean?" while another said: "What could possibly be the wrong thing to say while selling snacks?"
By the following Monday the Weibo censors had closed down all discussion on the subject, so that some were asking "What was the shape of that cake? Can anyone PM [private message] me? I searched a lot but still failed to know the answer." .... however as one person pointed out "Our own account will be in trouble just from us PM-ing you the photo. Who would dare to do it?" .... He resumed broadcasting on the 20th of September 2020 on Chinese online shopping platform Taobao.
Police state censorship is a trap that eventually gets out of control and boils over in to social unrest, as the Iranians are increasingly discovering.
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