Recently, Xinhua, China’s news agency, announced that the party in Gansu Province was planning to expand its “army“ of internet commentators. Not long after that, any mention of the topic disappeared from the state media. But now the “Five Cent Party” is a hot topic in China’s internet communities.

Plans of China’s propaganda department to expand its “internet commentators” include adding 50 high-ranking commentators, 100 mid-ranking and 500 “normal” commentators to its staff in the western Province of Gansu.

They are meant to closely follow internet discussions and post comments on websites, and in forums and blogs. In discussions pertaining to “hot” political or societal topics, they are to advocate the so-called “public” opinion.

Fooling the public?

A Chinese blogger called Han Han has estimated that if the government deploys as many as 650 commentators to a province as small as Gansu, then the number needed throughout the whole of China must be well over 100,000. If these estimations are true, it will cost the government a pretty penny. The question is whether or not these efforts will ever pay off. Chinese media critic Li Datong is not so sure Chinese internet users can be fooled so easily. “It becomes obvious very quickly when internet users are using fake identities. It just doesn’t work. And it also becomes obvious when a blogger is constantly sucking up to the government.”

Li Datong says the existence of the ”5 Cent Party“ in China is no longer a secret. But Li also warns that manipulating public opinion could also have negative consequences for the government. For the past few years, the government has been constantly participating in “free” discourse with Chinese internet communities. In a community chat with China’s leader, Hu Jintao, Li Datong noticed one user in particular. His name was “Red State” and he excessively praised the country’s leader.

“Internet users found out later that “Red State” always takes a government-friendly stance in chats of this nature. The government has spent so much money, but why? This is all just nonsense.”

A waste of time and money

A well-known Chinese blogger who goes by the name of Zola agrees that these government bloggers will be too expensive and completely ineffective.

“The members of the 5 Cent Party are contradicting the character of “social networks”. No one recognises their IDs, and they don’t write very much. It takes time and a network of friends to become well-known on blogs or Twitter. If they don’t have any followers on Twitter, for example, then their voices will go unheard. It might work sometimes, but in the long-term, the 5 Cent Party will not be effective.”

Freedom of speech

Before the age of internet, when people were dependent on print media, all the media companies in China were subjected to strict censorship by the department of propaganda. Back then, it was very easy to manipulate public opinion. But times have changed.

Li Datong says the spread of the internet has given the Chinese people a taste of freedom of speech. Now that so many people there have tasted this freedom, the question is whether the government will really be able to take it away.

Author: Li Shitao/Sarah Berning
Editor: Grahame Lucas