This is funny because the US anti-intellectual MAGA movement is doing the exact opposite. People with degrees who know what the fuck they are doing are being shunned and idiots with feels are being rewarded.

I think the main focus here should be the word "influencers".

One thing is for a relatively unknown person to speak about any kind of topic even if they know nothing about it.

But when someone with millions of followers spreads misinfo, that is dangerous as it can end up killing lots of people.

People with a certain amount of followers should be held accountable for what they say the same way that a newspaper should.

Turkey requires a college degree to become president. Then they started revoking the college degrees of the opposition candidates.

I mean, it’s not really a horrible idea, so long as it’s not being used to promote propaganda. (Which considering the source- it is)

Influencers are fucking horrible. Popularity should not default to trustworthiness. Remember: it was this type of thing that led to the idea that vaccines cause autism.

Gating influencers behind having even a bachelor ya degree in whatever field they’re teeing to bullshit people into buying, will cut down on the amount of ignorance spread as a result.

Dr. Oz is a heart surgeon, but that doesn't prevent him from selling bullshit.

Makes sense to me, for certain topics/areas.
Australia has a law about not being able to give financial advice without a qualification to do so, so 'influencers' who cover topics such as banking and investments do need to be careful about how they present their content because we dont want people going into financial ruin thinking "DollarGodMoneyMaker" on youtube is trustworthy and knows what the fuck he is talking about.

I'm not sure that'll solve anything. Plenty of people with degrees are idiots too. And many people without degrees may have long running experience in topics they talk about due to other reasons than getting a degree.

I can see how this would play out in the states. First you make it so only degreed people can talk about certain things. Then you dismiss them as educated elite ivory tower academics. Because we live in a nation that scorns experience and expertise.

Someone asked for an example the other day of something that didn't believe was true and I listed seven. They dismissed me with "I didn't ask for an encyclopedia." It was the best way they could ignore that someone knew more than them and not have to actually process the information they explicitly asked for.

Surface-level, seems good idea. In practice, it depends entirely on who gets to define an "influencer", what is a "serious topic", what activities meet the threshold of "speaking on" that topic, and which universities' degrees will be respected and which won't. It seems like a very flexible framework that their government could use to remove nearly any person from any platform for any reason. If I post "fruit is good for you" on a social platform and someone else sees it, that falls under these rules as I understand them. I anticipate selective enforcement of these rules against those not aligned with the CCP, in fact the rules seems to be specifically written with that in mind.

You know if the title was just “China bans influencers” I’d be ok with it.

This seems like it could be abused pretty easily. IDK are there any Chinese citizens here to comment

If youre an influencer with millions of followers a degree should be a small road block. Unless you dum.

This is quintessential “Modern CPP”

Take a real problem screwing up the western world bad (like influencer mis/disinformation), and smash it in a way only their massive state apparatus can…

Superficially.

It’s “proof” their party line works and, as always, a good way to control the populace, if abused. It’s probably effective, but not as effective as it appears on the surface.

I’m sympathetic here.

In past years I was a “free internet” libertarian leaning diehard, but something has to be done about algos boosting shameless outrage peddlers; it’s literally destroying the planet and our collective psyche, just for short term corporate benefit (Or corpo-state benefit in China's case, as its “Big Tech” is under the party's thumb). But China just took the problem and used it as an excuse for more control.

Idk how to feel about this. If this news came from the UK, the replies would've been:

you got a loicense for that, mate?

But because it's China, people will gladly glaze this move.

seems like a way to silence dissident speak, or rhetoric, anything critical of the CCP.

Curious to see if this leads to licenses or degrees being revoked as universities have their name tied to what people are saying.

Yikes

It's incredible that despite how shit the US has become It's still a better place than 1984 land

A real communist country would have a UBI that doesn't pressure people to become scammers and grifters, just to make a wage in a shit economy with little financial opportunities.

There's so much where this could be used to silence people, I can't trust this. What if you're an expert in a related field to the "serious" topic and disagree with the mainstream opinion held by experts within that field? Who gets to decide what constitutes a "serious" topic?

I just keep thinking of the recent Ms. Rachel controversy where conservative voices basically said she should stay out of talking on Palestine because she was "only" a children's educator. But one should be able to express their opinion on this serious matter even if you aren't an expert, and yeah, even if you're a major influencer.

I want societies to address misinformation and disinformation campaigns as much as the next person, but to be clear, I just don't trust governments to be the ones to do that. Granted governments are admittedly experts in misinformation and disinformation, so at least we can rest assured that experts have eyes on it though...

Those damn Commie bastards!

Hey! That's actually not a bad idea. Can we do that in our government, as well as dopey influencers? Start with PeeWee Mengele.