Chinese actor Xiao Zhan. Photo: IC

China's major social media platform Sina Weibo vowed in a statement on Saturday to make efforts to curb extreme  fan culture, including worshipping celebrities unconditionally and battling between different fan clubs, which echoes a wave of loud voices from the public recently calling for more attention and efforts from the authorities and relevant parties to direct young fans to better express their affection and support to their idols. 

The statement was made in response to a campaign that the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) launched the rectification of the internet environment for minors during the summer holidays. 

The rectification will mainly focus on the information and behavior in fan culture that have bad influence on the views or values of young people. 

Cyber-based violence, such as name-calling and personal attacks, and making excessive purchases to boost the sales of their idols' work is all within the scope of rectification. 

The platform will capture and publish such behavior on a billboard and announce new rules and measures to prevent the fans' voluntary yet extreme behavior of defending or marketing their idols. 

It will also deal with "trolls" and public accounts who are paid to attack or defame certain celebrities online, and continue talks with agency companies of celebrities to make clear their relevant responsibility in this rectification and strengthen collaboration with them.

As part of the CAC campaign, curbing hatemongers who deliberately incite hatred among young fans will be further reinforced as well. Weibo will have a more clear definition of "hatemongering" and include it into the management scope of the platform. 

The exorbitant fan culture, which has long existed among fans and made negative social impact recently, has also been under heated discussion by the public over how to direct young fans to express their support to celebrities they like in a right manner, without hurting anyone, including themselves. 

The heat of such discussion reached its peak after a fierce cyber clash between fans of Xiao Zhan, a Chinese actor with 26 million followers on Weibo, and fans of Archive of Our Own, or AO3, an overseas fan fiction site which was reported by Xiao's fans and was made inaccessible in the Chinese mainland due to fan work published on the site that they strongly oppose. 

The incident later attracted large scale public attention, with more fans and other netizens getting involved, resulting in a large conflict that bred cyber-based violence among all involved parties, of which a great proportion are underage. 

A survey conducted by Zhiyan consulting company showed that nearly 70 percent of the post-2000 generation self-identify as fans of some certain celebrities whom they would love to spend time and money to support.

 "The rectification finally came," said Jiang Hua, a Beijing-based mother of a 14-year-old fan girl who was found to have posted many offensive comments on her social media accounts against people who attacked the Korean boy band she likes. 

Jiang told the Global Times that Weibo's move will to a great degree help improve the internet environment where young fans gather together and worship their idols.

"I don't want to see my child continue to be influenced by such crazy and abnormal fan culture. Liking and supporting public figures with good moral character should be a sweet thing that people might get inspiration from, not something that turns people into malicious trolls. We need a peaceful and positive internet environment on social platforms," she said.