66: Chapter 66 Public Opinion Censorship! This Time We're Not Afraid!!

Seoul.

SM Entertainment President's Office.

The air conditioning was cranked up high.

Kim Young-min leaned back against the leather chair back, raising his head to stare at the large LCD screen on the wall.

On the screen, the real-time interfaces of major social platforms in China were jumping crazily.

Every second, tens of thousands of crusade comments mixed with both Chinese and Korean were scrolling past.

Lee Sang-hyeok stood in front of the wide desk, pinching a paper briefing in his hand.

"President Kim, news just came from China. A law-popularizing lawyer with five million followers turned on a live broadcast to popularize the law, pointing out clearly that that ten-year non-compete agreement does not have legal validity domestically. Because it exceeded the statutory two-year limit, and the company has not paid any financial compensation."

Kim Young-min flicked his wrist, flicking off the ash on the cigar.

"Does not have validity?" Kim Young-min pulled the corners of his mouth, "Jurisprudence is one matter, public opinion is another matter. As long as we cut off the source and nobody can see those popular science videos, that piece of waste paper can continue to suppress him for a lifetime so he can never turn things around."

He picked up the red internal dedicated line telephone on the desk.

"Notify the public relations chief agent of the Greater China region. Immediately initiate the level-one crisis contingency plan. Mobilize all media resources, internet troll companies, and platform connections we have invested in in China. Within one hour, I want to see all discussions online about this matter completely disappear."

The other end of the phone sent a confirmation reply.

Lee Sang-hyeok swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

This was a public relations budget of over tens of billions of won. Last time to suppress the scandal of the "typist", it had already burned more than forty billion. This time adding another fifty billion.

These Chinese netizens usually tore each other apart for idols competing for charts, is it worth this level of importance?

"President Kim, the approval process for this budget will be very troublesome."

Kim Young-min saw through Lee Sang-hyeok's thoughts, his voice as cold as ice: "Crush them directly before the flames ignite, absolutely must not give them a chance to develop. Five years ago I left him a path of survival, this time, I want him to completely die in the internet's database!"

Commands were issued layer by layer.

The massive multinational capital machine roared into full speed operation.

Dali. By G214 National Highway.

The Buick business vehicle stopped in the night. Yan Yu held up her phone, the lens aimed at herself.

The live broadcast room's online viewer count had already broken through four hundred thousand. The densely packed bullet comments on the screen were all discussing the feasibility of forming a multinational legal team.

The screen suddenly flashed.

Without any premonition.

Black screen.

Right in the center of the screen, a warning box with white background and black characters popped up coldly: [Your account has been temporarily frozen due to suspected infringement of others' trade secrets and copyrights, and the live broadcast has been forcibly interrupted.]

Yan Yu was stunned.

Her fingers trembled, clicking return. Exiting the live broadcast room, returning to her personal homepage.

Completely empty.

The Dali old piano store video that had nine hundred and ninety thousand likes a few minutes ago was nowhere to be seen.

The long article on the route map organized with days of painstaking effort showed it was taken down for violations.

Along with that group photo of the thirteen people in the cafeteria, they all turned into dazzling red exclamation marks.

"Brother Cai..." Yan Yu's voice was dry, "They banned my account."

Brother Cai kicked the brake pedal. The business vehicle stopped abruptly.

A-Li snatched Yan Yu's phone, his thumb frantically swiping down to refresh the page. Besides a white screen, it was still a white screen.

"F***! When did this short video platform change its surname to Kim? They ban as soon as they say so!"

Netizens were forcibly kicked out of the live broadcast room, running to leave comments under Yan Yu's latest updates.

[Shocked! Why did it suddenly go black screen?]

[SM Entertainment is covering mouths again! So shameless!]

[Using this trick five years ago, still coming with it five years after? You guys only have this little capability!]

Shanghai.

Wang Wenjian sat in the e-sports chair, passionately shouting microphone lines right facing the camera.

The green light at the base of the microphone flashed twice and completely went out.

The live broadcast companion software on the computer screen uncontrollably closed its process.

The system pop-up window jumped out: [Involving sensitive controversial content, banned for forty-eight hours.]

"F***! This lousy platform wiped out my account!"

Wang Wenjian burst out a curse, his right fist heavily smashing onto the tabletop.

Switched to the Weibo backend.

Wang Wenjian's eyes widened round, failing to catch his breath for a long time.

Just five minutes ago, the [Ten-year Non-compete] entry that firmly monopolized the top of the Weibo hot search list started a cliff-like drop in ranking.

Fiftieth place.

Ninetieth place.

Just the effort of refreshing a webpage, the entry directly disappeared from the list, with no trace of this hot search.

Truly crazy!

Not only were videos banned and hot searches removed. Below Lawyer Luo's popular science video on Bilibili, tens of thousands of machine accounts flooded in within a second to carry out malicious reporting.

The video link immediately turned into the gray "Very sorry, the video you accessed is gone".

Lin Hao's dance studio's late-night live broadcast had its push stream signal cut off.

At the same time.

A large batch of large entertainment marketing accounts with blue V certification released sternly worded press releases in step:

[Regarding the forged contracts and untrue remarks circulating on the internet, SM Entertainment has submitted formal rights-protection letters to all platforms in our country. The internet is not a land outside the law, please the vast netizens stop fabricating and spreading rumors.]

The wind direction changed abruptly.

Ordinary netizens' full chests of anger were pressed down by an invisible hand.

[F***? What does this mean?]

[How come it suddenly can't be watched, Lawyer Luo's popular science video is also gone?!!]

[I'm f***ing convinced, are they starting public relations again???]

[Damn it, it didn't succeed last time, still coming this time? Have you no shame!]

[Using the same trick on us twice, is it useful??]

[We are f***ing Chinese netizens, the group of people with the highest pressure resistance in the world!]

[Charge!!!]

[...]

Netizens kept charging, but every time they were pressed down.

Want to post?

The system prompts that it contains violating vocabulary.

Want to send pictures?

AI image recognition technology directly automatically mosaics and blocks photos with the word contract.

Countless people in front of the screen were anxious until their eyes turned red.

Keyboards were battered making earth-shaking sounds, as long as they typed the two words "Su Chen" or "S. C.", clicking send, the page unwaveringly displayed "Send failed".

In front of the mature multinational post-deletion industrial chain, the power of a single netizen appeared thin and helpless.

...

Seoul.

Kim Young-min looked at the data curve rapidly subsiding on the screen, in a great mood.

He walked over to the wine cabinet, and poured a glass of Romanée-Conti.

As long as people are muffled into mutes, the possibility of overturning a case does not exist in this world.

As time goes on, when a new talent show variety show airs, who will still remember a civilian whose whereabouts are unknown?

But he underestimated the Chinese netizens.

And he even more underestimated the destructive power of a people's war thoroughly angered.

...

Shanghai.

Inside a certain dim single apartment.

Keyboard Grey leaned in front of the computer.

The ashtray on the desk was stuffed with twisted cigarette butts.

Lao Wang's voice call came in.

"Brother Grey! They are going for the kill, the five fan groups I built were all blown up."

Keyboard Grey rested his ten fingers on the mechanical keyboard, typing out a line of underlying code instructions, his tone without ripples: "Brother Wang. Preventing the people from speaking is more severe than preventing a river."

Hung up the phone.

Keyboard Grey took off his black-framed glasses, rubbing his high and straight nose bridge.

He entered a long string of complex IP codes in the browser address bar, calling up a dormant, secretive dark web hacker forum for three years. In this forum, countless domestic top technical tycoons, red-hat security engineers, and code geeks lurked.

He typed a sentence on the public screen.

[Someone is playing network censorship on our turf. Brothers, let these outsiders witness what a cyber guerrilla warfare in the information age is called.]

The instructions were packaged and sent out.

An unprecedented scale of anti-sanction action, under the spontaneous participation of countless non-fandom netizens, vigorously kicked off its prelude.