Amid the great purge in China, Tzuyu, the Taiwanese member of TWICE is also being affected.
On August 31 (at local time), Taiwanese media, including China Times and Liberty Times, reported that the biggest SNS site ‘Weibo’ had sent a notice to Tzuyu’s fanclub account and told them to change the fanclub name.
Tzuyu’s fanclub immediately uploaded a post asking their members to consider the name together: “According to the government’s policy, we must modify this account within 2 weeks.”
Shortly after that, the post was deleted.
The fanclub name ‘TZUYUbar’, which has been used for a long time, was created by adding ‘bar’ to Tzuyu’s name. However, it was said that the government requested them to delete the “bar” in the name.
Earlier, The Central Cyberspace Administration of the Chinese Communist Party announced the 10 measures to “strengthen the management of fandom”. Therefore, Tzuyu was also affected.
The 10 measures included a ban on releasing celebrity popularity charts, prohibiting fundraising for supporting celebrities. Moreover, online platforms that do not manage the fans and let them spread rumors and swear on the Internet will be punished.
It was reported that the Chinese government is also targeting Hong Kong and Taiwanese celebrities.
In particular, Taiwanese media said that there is a high possibility that famous artists who support ‘Hong Kong Independence’ and ‘Taiwan Independence’ will become the next major targets for investigations.
In fact, in 2016, Tzuyu was attacked by Chinese netizens because she waved the flag of Taiwan on a Korean TV show.
At that time, Tzuyu had to post an apology video the night before the presidential election, and the incident was ended.
