Chinese actor Zhao Wei has been deleted from video platforms there – here's what we know

One of China's biggest stars has had her name erased from Chinese video platforms, making her the latest public figure targeted by Beijing in its crackdown on "celebrity culture".To get more chinese entertainment news, you can visit shine news official website.

Billionaire Zhao Wei, also known as Vicky Zhao, is an award-winning Chinese actor and filmmaker.

She first found fame in the late 1990s in a Chinese TV series called My Fair Princess, in which she played the lead, before becoming one of China's biggest stars as an actor, filmmaker and businesswoman. Zhao has had films and TV shows she starred in or directed removed from many video platforms, and has had her name removed from online casting lists.

Her fan page on the heavily censored Chinese social networking site Weibo has been taken down, CNN reports, while SCMP reports that a hashtag allowing fans to share information about her was also censored.
Nevertheless, Chinese state-run tabloid Global Times said that topics like "What's happening with Zhao Wei" and "Zhao Wei was removed from many of her works" topped the trending lists on Weibo the day her online presence was scrubbed.

Why target her?
Although the move comes amid the squeeze on celebrity culture, there is no clarity on why specifically she has been targeted.

The Global Times ran a headline the day after Zhao was scrubbed, calling her a "scandals-hit actress", detailing the various lawsuits surrounding her investments, which included an early stake in Alibaba Pictures Group, a film company under Jack Ma's Alibaba Group. Late last year, Jack Ma — also a billionaire — disappeared from public life for three months after the Chinese government prevented him from taking his Ant Group public, following his criticism of the state bureaucracy.

Local media reported that Zhou also owned the agency representing Chinese actor Zheng Zhehan, who recently found himself the target of Chinese nationalists after an old selfie of him at a shrine for Japanese soldiers surfaced online.
Why crack down on celebrities?
China's top internet watchdog said on Friday it would take action against the dissemination of "harmful information" in celebrity fan groups and close down discussion channels that spread celebrity scandals or "provoke trouble".Platforms will no longer be able to publish lists of popular celebrity individuals and fan groups must be regulated, the watchdog said.

Chinese authorities have also been targeting domestic celebrities after a number of controversies.State media has gone into overdrive urging changes to China's entertainment culture.

"For some time now, artists' moral failures and legal violations, the cultivation of younger idols, and 'chaotic' fandoms, have attracted widespread attention in society," state broadcaster CCTV said on Tuesday.Chinese celebrities have been subjected to such treatment in the past when they have fallen foul of authorities or public sentiment.China has stringent rules on content ranging from video games to movies to music, and censors anything it believes violates core socialist values.