Chinese police are cracking down on “extreme feminism” online

Local authorities justify crackdown with claim that feminists and animal rights activists want to disrupt social order

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The Weibo post from Mianyang internet police about cracking down on “extreme feminism” drew thousands of comments and shares before comments were suspended. (Picture: 绵阳网警巡查执法 on Weibo)

Xinmei Shen

Published: 9:10pm, 11 Jun 2019Updated: 9:06am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

There are many kinds of online content that Chinese authorities deem inappropriate: Sensitive political comments, violence in games and all pornographic content. Now one more thing has been added to a local police watchlist: “Extreme feminism.”

The internet police in Mianyang, a town in Sichuan province, said in a Weibo post yesterday that the primary task in “cleaning up the internet” is to crack down on extremism. This includes “extreme feminism,” which the post specifies as using the fight for women’s rights as a cover for creating social conflict.

Feminists aren’t alone, though. Extreme animal rights activists were also mentioned.

The police argue that “extreme organizations” take a “seemingly just” stance to gain large numbers of supporters who can later be mobilized to stir up trouble and disrupt social order.

“Many righteous netizens often suffer from organized attacks,” the Mianyang internet police said.

China now has hundreds of local internet police accounts on Weibo, WeChat and Baidu Tieba. They’re tasked with monitoring the internet 24 hours a day, and their activities are varied. They crack down on “illegal and harmful information,” stop “bad online behavior” and online crimes, and even share educational posts and debunk rumors about cybersecurity.

They all use the same name in their social media profiles: “Internet police patrol and law enforcement.”