Chinese BTS fans celebrate Jimin's birthday with a plane banner, leading to Weibo account suspension
[Asia Economy Reporter Heo Midam] The Chinese social networking service (SNS) 'Weibo' has sparked controversy by suspending 21 fan club accounts of Korean celebrities.
According to Chinese media such as Pengpai (澎湃) on the 6th, Weibo took a 30-day suspension action against 21 Korean celebrity fan club accounts, including the Chinese fan club account of Jang Wonyoung, formerly of IZ*ONE, citing the reason that they "spread content that irrationally follows and supports stars."
The suspended fan club accounts reportedly include fan accounts of IU, BLACKPINK's Lisa and Ros?, EXO's Sehun, BTS, and others.
Earlier, on the 27th of last month, the Office of the Central Internet Security and Informatization Committee of the Chinese Communist Party announced measures to "strengthen management of disorderly fandoms."
The measures include prohibiting minors from spending money to support celebrities and banning fan clubs from insulting each other online or spreading rumors and fighting.
In relation to this, it was recently revealed that BTS member Jimin's Chinese fans raised a large sum of money for birthday celebrations through Weibo, which led to the suspension of the relevant Weibo account.
The Chinese fans had already flown an airplane covered with Jimin's photos using the collected money and planned to run full-page advertisements in the New York Times (NYT) and other outlets on his birthday (October 13).
Jimin's fans started collecting money for this event from April. The amount raised surpassed 1 million yuan (approximately 180 million KRW) in 3 minutes and exceeded 2.3 million yuan (approximately 400 million KRW) within an hour.
However, after criticism poured in online following reports of Jimin fans' birthday event, Weibo suspended Jimin fans' accounts for 60 days and deleted all posts related to the birthday event.
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