How Weibo helps Chinese authorities quash the feminist movement by deleting activist accounts, while also profiting from their nationalist harassers
Prominent feminist activist Xiao Meili had never expected to find herself in the center of a nationalist storm.
ProtocolShen Lu
Context & Ripple Effects
This Protocol investigation lands in the middle of a documented arc: months earlier, Rest of World reported that political talk on Weibo had grown so muted under pervasive censorship that users resorted to burner accounts, and companion Protocol reporting showed platforms like [[a:965143|Douyin operating as live labs where grassroots nationalists and state media coordinate harassment]]. What is new here is the business angle — the platform that deletes feminist accounts like Xiao Meili's also profits from the nationalist traffic that piles onto those it spares.
The story also foreshadows what came later in the coverage trail: online feminism kept growing across Weibo, Douyin, WeChat, and Douban despite platform scrutiny, before real-name requirements for popular users forced some influencers to cull followers or quit entirely.
First-order effects
Activists like Xiao Meili lose their primary distribution channel overnight when Weibo deletes their accounts, while the nationalist harassers targeting them keep monetized reach on the same platform.
Second-order effects
Douyin-style coordination between nationalist mobs and state media gives authorities a second enforcement layer beyond account deletion — harassment does the suppression work where deletion alone would only create martyrs.
Third-order effects
As the pattern holds through the later real-name mandate, Chinese social platforms consolidate into an enforcement stack for the state — moderation, harassment economics, and identity verification each closing off one escape route, pushing feminist organizing toward smaller apps like Douban.
The trend: Chinese social platforms are evolving from neutral hosts into paid infrastructure for state-aligned suppression, where censorship and harassment revenue reinforce each other.
The rise of Red V's - nationalist influencers on the Chinese web - seems to replace or add to the clunky 50 centers. Do they already stalk the digital web in the West? https://www.protocol.com/...
Weibo shut down 11 prominent feminist activists' accounts after nationalist influencers doxxed and trolled them, cobbling together what they felt was evidence of the women's disloyalty to China and their intent to subvert the state. https://www.protocol.com/...
Weibo is ‘treating the incels like the royal family’ China's key nationalist influencers, known as so-called “Red Vs”, are descending on Xiao Meili and other feminist activists, who say the social media platform is helping the haters. https://www.protocol.com/... by @shenlulushen
An important piece from @shenlulushen on @protocol | China about how Chinese social platforms like Weibo appear to be *helping* vicious, misogynistic “Red V” nationalists by shutting down feminist accounts because nationalism is a lucrative business. https://www.protocol.com/...
China's feminist activists worry about “a coordinated, possibly state-directed action to wipe out gender discourse on Weibo, although they can't be certain. Fear permeates the feminist community, and no one knows when the attacks will end.” @shenlulushen https://www.protocol.com/…