Mao Zedong once wrote that “the Communist party must control the guns”. Now, it seems, it must control the internet as well. Of course, this is not exactly new. For years China’s authorities have played a cat-and-mouse game with internet users, taking down controversial posts and intimidating persistent “offenders”. The Great Firewall of China is so bulky it, too, can doubtless be seen from space.

But in recent weeks China’s security apparatus has intensified the crackdown. It has launched a full-blown offensive against microblog celebrities, cracking down on what it has termed malicious rumour-mongering. Through official publications, the government has described online criticism of the party as “defamation” and issued a legal interpretation allowing people to be prosecuted for “spreading online rumours” if their posts have been viewed by more than 5,000 internet users or forwarded more than 500 times. The message seems clear: if you’re going to post something controversial, you’d better make sure no one reads it.

In the past weeks, hundreds of bloggers have been rounded up. The attack has been especially focused on the so-called “Big Vs”, the internet celebrities, some with millions of followers, who have exclusive “verified” accounts on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. Last weekend Charles Xue, an outspoken blogger with 12m followers, was paraded on state television praising the crackdown. In August Mr Xue, a Chinese-born US investor who writes under the pen name Xue Manzi, was arrested for allegedly hiring prostitutes. The official Chinese media highlighted his online exploits as much as his alleged bedroom antics, suggesting the former was the graver offence. “The internet Big V ‘Xue Manzi’ has toppled from the sacred altar,” carped state-run news agency Xinhua. “This has sounded a warning bell to all Big Vs.”