It was announced that BTS Jimin‘s Chinese fansite, Jimin Bar, has been penalized by Weibo for their recent crowdfunding airplane advertisement. Jimin Bar had planned on the custom airplane to celebrate his birthday, you can read more about the project here.

This comes in line with the recent measures by Chinese authorities to clamp down on what they are calling “irrational” idol worshiping. They had previously planned a gorgeous advertisement by wrapping a plane from JejuAir with Jimin’s birthday banner, something that had not been seen before in K-Pop.

An announcement by Weibo delivered the verdict on Jimin Bar’s project. Jimin Bar has been banned from posting on the platform for 60 days.

Weibo Community Announcement:

       "Since Cyberspace Administration of China announced “Additional Measures To Clean Up Fandom Chaos,” Weibo has been doing related clean-up as requested, posting several announcements to advocate supporting celebrities within reason and to maintain order within this community. Netizens reported to us that, in April, an account started a crowdfunding event for a “customized airplane” on other platforms, which violated the rules. Recently, they posted the results of the event on Weibo. The contents of the post included elements of inducing and comparing, which is a serious issue. We immediately banned the account JIMIN_JMC (also known as Jimin Bar) from posting for 60 days and deleted the related Weibo posts. Weibo is strictly against the irrational support of celebrities, and is ready to take serious actions. Weibo remains committed to fulfill our social and corporate responsibilities, and has strengthened our governance over fandoms in order to clean up their online conduct. Our entire platform is using the same standards while governing and setting the rules, without a single difference. Once an act of supporting a celebrity is determined to be irrational, we will deal with it seriously. Going forward, we will continue to make periodic announcements on actions taken. We all need to work hard together in order to clean up the fandoms; our users are welcomed to give us tips and feedback on this matter."

-Weibo

Many future large-scale projects by Chinese fansites may now be in jeopardy as they may face a ban by Weibo.