Wumaodang

50 Cent Party
Traditional Chinese	五毛黨
Simplified Chinese	五毛党
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin wǔmáo dǎng
Internet commentator(s)
Traditional Chinese	網絡評論員
Simplified Chinese	网络评论员
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin wǎngluò pínglùn yuán

Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	wǔmáo dǎng

Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	wǎngluò pínglùn yuán

The 50 Cent Party, or 50 Cent Army (Chinese: 五毛党 wǔmáo dǎng), is the colloquial term for Internet commentators i.e. trolls (Chinese: 网络评论员 wǎngluò pínglùn yuán) hired by Chinese propaganda authorities in an attempt to manipulate public opinion to the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party during the early phases of Internet's rollout to the wider public in China. The name derives from the allegation that commentators were said to be paid fifty cents (in Renminbi) for every post. They created favorable comments or articles on popular social media networks, intended to derail discussions that are unhelpful to the Communist Party and promoted narratives that served the government's interests, together with disparaging comments and misinformation about political opponents and critics of the Chinese government, both domestic and abroad. It is also used as a derogatory term against people with perceived pro-CPC or Chinese nationalist views.

A 2016 Harvard University paper found that in contrast to common assumptions, Chinese internet commentators are mostly paid government bureaucrats, responding to government directives in times of crisis, and flood Chinese social media with pro-government comments. They also rarely engage in direct arguments, and around 80% of the analyzed posts involve pro-China cheerleading with inspirational slogans, and 13% involve general praise and suggestions on governmental policies.

As of 2016, this practice seems to have largely ceased, and propagandist participation in Internet discussions has become part of the Communist party officials' normal work. Also the nature of participation has become more nuanced and less aggressive. Research indicated a "massive secretive operation" to fill China's internet with propaganda has resulted in some 488 million posts carried out by fake social media accounts, out of the 80 billion posts generated on Chinese social media. To maximize their influence, their pro-government comments are made largely during times of intense online debate, and when online protests have a possibility of transforming into real life actions

In October 2004, the Publicity Department of Changsha started hiring Internet commentators, in one of the earliest known uses of professional Internet commentators.

In March 2005, the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China enacted a systematic censorship of Chinese college bulletin board systems. The popular "Little Lily" BBS, run by Nanjing University, was forced to close. As a new system was prepared to be launched, school officials hired students as part-time web commentators, paid from the university's work-study funds, to search the forum for undesirable information and actively counter it with Party-friendly viewpoints. In the following months, party leaders from Jiangsu began hiring their own teams. By mid-2007, web commentator teams recruited by schools, and party organizations were common across China. Shanghai Normal University employed undergraduates to monitor for signs of dissent and post on university forums. These commentators not only operate within political discussions, but also in general discussions. Afterwards, some schools and local governments also started to build similar teams.

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Wikipedia