Online drive takes aim at ‘historical nihilism’

Toutiao and Douyin users urged to report posts that challenge party’s view of history

Beijing has intensified its campaign to clean up online posts seen as contradictory to the Communist Party narrative on history, as the country gears up for a landmark national congress.

Two media platforms owned by ByteDance – Toutiao and Douyin – issued notices urging users to report posts containing “historical nihilism” – a party term for opinions or research challenging its official version of history.

The notices, sent out on Monday and Tuesday, laid out five focuses for the clean-up starting next month. These are provocative discussion of sensitive or trending topics on the history of the party, country or military; criticism of Marxism, Mao Zedong Thought and the theory of Deng Xiaoping; disputes over the party’s evolutionary history and China’s economic and open-door policies; content that vilifies party and state leaders; and parodies of communist history or the whitewashing of “villains” in the official version of history.

The campaign also targets posts that discredit traditional Chinese culture, or socialist and revolutionary culture. Content that glorifies Western culture or history and foreign colonialism will also be under scrutiny.

The notices are the latest in a clean-up campaign launched by several major media and social media platforms. The biggest knowledge-sharing platform operator, Zhihu, said its drive last week handled 67 complaints related to historical nihilism.

Authors of some posts claimed to be “reflecting on history” or “declassifying” historical information but were actually disseminating harmful information related to historical nihilism, Zhihu said.

Sina Kandian, a social video platform, launched a similar campaign, warning that user accounts might be permanently deleted if they published content revealing “historical nihilism”.

This comes after internet operators launched a wave of clean-up operations last year ahead of Communist Party centenary celebrations, an occasion used by President Xi Jinping to highlight the achievements of the party and the importance of having a strong leader to steer the country.

Beijing has been resorting to mass campaigns, such as encouraging the public to report to the authorities, to enforce its censorship aims.

The latest comes as the party focuses on its 20th national congress this autumn, a historic event ushering in not only a major leadership reshuffle but an unprecedented third term for Xi as general secretary. His two predecessors both stepped down after the stipulated two terms.