It’s not unusual for social media posts and accounts to disappear from the Chinese internet. But when works of popular actor Zhao Wei vanished overnight from leading online platforms last week, there was a conspicuous frenzy.To get more chinese entertainment news, you can visit shine news official website.

Why one of China’s most celebrated celebrities, who rose to fame with hit television series “My Fair Princess” in the late ‘90s, has been targeted is unclear, but speculations that the authorities may be after her for finance-related issues have surfaced online. After all, the billionaire actor had a history of financial irregularities, including being banned from the securities market for misleading stock investors for providing false information in 2017.

Just as the mysterious events surrounding Zhao went viral on social media Thursday, another bombshell dropped the following day. ​​Zheng Shuang, a high-profile actor previously investigated for contract fraud, had been slapped with 229 million yuan ($46 million) in fines and overdue taxes.

The back-to-back incidents involving two of China’s A-list celebrities have many asking: Is the country’s entertainment industry facing a reckoning after tightening regulations on fintech, internet, and education sectors?Chinese celebrities have often been targeted by the authorities, as well as online nationalists, over the years. Pop star Kris Wu was arrested over rape allegations, actor Zhang Zhehan criticized for posing at a site honoring Japanese war criminals, and Fan Bingbing heavily fined for tax evasion.

But the ultimate target this time is the behind-the-scenes “capital” from investors and shareholders propping up celebrity agencies, production companies, streaming sites, and social media platforms, industry insiders and lawyers told Sixth Tone. They said these methods of profit seeking have created problems, as many stars are now valued on their ability to generate online traffic instead of their talent.

Jiang Yu, a researcher with the Development Research Center of the State Council, said in an interview published Tuesday that stars with high online traffic are “chosen” by capital to be visible and lure fans, especially younger ones, to consume. The trend has become so widespread that China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism has vowed to prevent cash inflow in the cultural and entertainment industry from “expanding wildly.”

“The massive capital flow into the (entertainment) industry has created a bubble that can make stars popular overnight solely supported by money and without any hard work,” a celebrity agent surnamed Yan told Sixth Tone, using a pseudonym for privacy reasons.

The capital flow in recent years, experts said, has been buoyed by fan groups spending large amounts of money to boost their idol’s rankings and social media profiles. The once nascent idol economy is now worth 130 billion yuan, and the fandom has turned so chaotic that internet regulators must frequently step in to tame overzealous fans, which they say is breeding a “harmful culture.”Wang Hailin, a prominent scriptwriter, told Sixth Tone that many television productions have favored stars whose massive fan groups can help drive the show’s online traffic. He said the trend ultimately hurts the quality of the works being produced.

“The whole industrial chain is swayed by traffic and algorithms that drive it; from the value of the intellectual property, production, sales, to marketing and promotion,” Wang said. “Ultimately, high traffic means ‘good.’ Low means ‘bad.’”

Yan, the celebrity agent with nearly two decades of experience, said she is in charge of managing actors and usually oversees political and legal issues while assessing their scripts. However, she added that many new agents now tend to treat actors as fast-moving consumer goods and “take orders,” hardly even reading entire scripts.