Source: NYT > Business (paywall)
After years of state effort to enforce cheerful, patriotic sentiment across Chinese platforms, the CCP is losing control of the emotional tenor of its own internet. Users are increasingly sharing dark humor, cynicism, and despair about economic stagnation and personal prospects. Censorship hasn't failed—suppression alone cannot manufacture authentic optimism when material conditions don't support it. The party now confronts the limits of sentiment engineering.