Ren Zeping (任泽平), the famous Chinese economist and online commentator, is trending on Weibo after his WeChat account was suddenly restricted from gaining new followers today due to a platform violation. His account is still up (任泽平宏观), but seems to be shadowbanned as well. Ren's last post before the ban was a post titled "The Market Has Bottomed Out, and a Rebound Is Underway." In the post, he stressed pressure on the Chinese economy, weak domestic demand, and declining consumption and investment, but emphasized that AI & leading domestic tech companies are the main opportunities going forward. But it's completely unclear whether that analysis, or any of the hundreds of other posts on his account, got him in trouble this time. One WeChat blogger commented, "If such a badass analyst can't even figure out which of his own writing got him banned, then just how seriously should we take him?" But another Weibo account shared their experience of just how unpredictable it can be, as their accounts across all platforms were also muted during Covid: "Honestly, even now, I have no idea what the supposed standards are for running an independent social media account. To put it bluntly, I don’t know whether my account will still be here tomorrow, or whether something I posted in the past will be dug up and used to hold me accountable." Ren was previously banned from posting on his Weibo account in 2022 for proposing that the central bank set up a $314 billion “fertility fund” to encourage people to have more babies.