China launches crackdown on ‘unauthorized’ use of language

China’s powerful internet regulator has launched a campaign to crack down on “unauthorized” use of language online, in a move experts say is a bid to stem the widespread use of slang and abbreviations by Generation Z on social media.

The Cyberspace Administration of China will take steps to “rectify the chaos of the irregular use of Mandarin and other characters on the internet,” state news agency Xinhua reported on Oct. 12.

The move is part of a nationwide crackdown on language usage with the code name “Clear and Bright,” and will target expressions involving homophones – words that work as code by sounding like another word – and distortions of “sound, form and meaning.”

The campaign will aim to erase “non-standard and uncivilized language and written expressions in lists of trending searches, homepages, and curated selections,” the agency reported, citing the administration.

Tip-offs will be encouraged, to enable the authorities to “clean up” unauthorized usages, it said.

Chinese internet censors already have a huge database of “sensitive words” that are banned from the internet, including references to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and Winnie the Pooh – because of the fictional teddy bear’s alleged resemblance to ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.

The Cyberspace Administration has targeted homophones before, largely because they’re used as code to evade censorship.

A former Chinese internet censor told Radio Free Asia that the authorities are likely now increasingly worried about a new wave of online slang widely used by Generation Z on social media, including “lying flat” and “leeks,” which refers to ordinary people as a harvestable resource to be used by the authorities for their own purposes.

“Once they block all of these slang expressions, it may only be possible to use official narratives and official definitions, so it’s a form of speech control,” Liu Lipeng, a former Sina Weibo censor who now lives in the United States, told RFA Cantonese. “It’s a complex form of manipulation of ideology, of the narrative.”

For example, the term “Xianzhong” has recently been used to describe a slew of public knifing and car attacks that kill or maim innocent bystanders, in a reference to a 17th century Taoist rebel, Liu said.

“They’ve changed his given name into a verb, so it means ‘to offer loyalty,’ which makes it much darker, and makes the attacks look more serious,” he said. 

Riffs and loan words

According to Liu, part of the reason behind the campaign is that the government likely fears that if such code words are allowed to evolve and spread, there will come a point when the government itself doesn’t understand them. 

Such coded expressions also strengthen a sense of communication and identity within the groups who use them, he said.

But it’s not always easy, because plenty of slang expressions are riffs on common words.

One of Xi Jinping’s nicknames, “Personally Deployed,” appears in official documents all over the internet as well as being used as a slang reference to the party leader.

And “lying flat,” is hard to delete, because it is commonly used just to mean “lying down,” Liu said. “Leeks” is another expression that is hard to delete wholesale, without looking at the context.

A brief search for common slang expressions on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, yielded a number of Gen X expressions, including “XSWL,” which uses the initial letters of the pinyin spelling to mean “I died laughing,” and “BLX,” to mean fragility in the face of challenge, satire or criticism.

Another Douyin user said Gen Z likes to use slang that plays on the meanings and appearance of Chinese characters, pinyin abbreviations, as well as incorporating loan words from Cantonese and Japanese.

Another acronym, “YYDS,” or “everlasting god,” is similar to the acronym “GOAT,” or “greatest of all time” in English. 

“If you know that YYDS means GOAT, then congratulations, you’re probably a young, high-frequency internet user,” one Douyin user commented. “If that leaves you feeling confused, then admit it, you’re probably over the hill and out of touch.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.