Dragon TV claims 5 million MSN Messenger users "heart" China

Since we told you about the MSN (L) China campaign yesterday, the mainstream media in China has lapped it all up. Shanghai's Dragon TV today claimed a whopping 5 million MSN users. And just as you're wondering where the hell they plucked that figure from, Xinhua today quoted a paltry 2.3 million MSN Messenger users, and even has a very authoritative source to back that up:

MSN China spokesman Feng Guangshun released the figure on Thursday. Many more people have opened their MSN accounts to find a message which asked them to add the "red heart" and "China" in front of their signatures.

Feng said he expected the number of participants of this activity, which started Wednesday as a spontaneous patriotic campaign by Chinese Internet users, to raise dramatically in the following few days.

Watch what you put up as your nickname on MSN Messenger, boys and girls, 'cause Big Brother is watching (and counting).

UPDATE: Danwei adds that some users are now adding (U) CNN to their MSN nickname so that it now looks like this:

Previously on Shanghaiist
(L) China: Nationalist netizens on MSN Messenger "heart" China