China censors economic, financial writer Wu Xiaobo for ‘hyping up unemployment rate’ amid economic slowdown
- Wu Xiaobo and two other users are suspended by Chinese social media platform Weibo for ‘disseminating negative and harmful information’
- Ban comes on the same day a National Audit Office report says more than 980 million yuan (US$135.6 million) in employment subsidies were defrauded in 2022
A prominent economic and financial writer has again been suspended by Chinese social media platform Weibo for “disseminating negative and harmful information” about the country’s economy, as Beijing continues to censor online speech amid a sputtering post-coronavirus recovery.
Wu Xiaobo, along with two other users, “hyped up the unemployment rate”, “smeared the development of the security market”, and “attacked and undermined” China’s current economic policies, according to a statement from the Twitter-like social media platform on Monday.
It is not clear which of Wu’s social media activity led to the suspension, but in late May on Xiaohongshu – another social media platform – he said that “the industrial economy is sluggish, and private entrepreneurs collectively lack the willingness to invest”.
“The manufacturing and real estate sectors, which could traditionally absorb hundreds of millions of employees, are weak and unable to provide new job pools,” Wu added on his official Xiaohongshu channel.