Censors Delete Claim That China’s Bad Economy Is Packing Jails

by Alexander Boyd | Oct 07, 2024

WeChat has censored an article on a trending question on Douyin: “Why are jails packed this year?” The article, a short synthesis of a viral genre of short video, claimed that detention centers are overfilled due to...

If a phrase as trivial as 'It’s snowing in Xi’an' crosses a legal red line, then any jests or inadvertent remarks made by ordinary Internet users could easily become 'legal pitfalls.'”

— WeChat blogger Songqingren, commenting on a recent case in which authorities in Xi'an arrested a woman for "rumor-mongering" just because she posted a video incorrectly claiming that it was snowing in Xi'an

 

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Censors Delete Claim That China’s Bad Economy Is Packing Jails

Oct 7, 2024

WeChat has censored an article on a trending question on Douyin: “Why are jails packed this year?” The article, a short synthesis of a viral genre of short video, claimed that detention centers are overfilled due to China’s economic woes and increasingly aggressive policing:  1. Severe economic pressure. The frequency of crime in the “new economy” is attributable to the desperate measures many have resorted to. Many individuals have taken to industries that are  illicit or semi-illicit: multi-level marketing, money laundering, and crypto-fraud. A number of businesses with falling...

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Censors Delete Claim That China’s Bad Economy Is Packing Jails

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WeChat has censored an article on a trending question on Douyin: “Why are jails packed this year?” The article, a short synthesis of a viral genre of short video, claimed that detention centers are overfilled due to China’s economic woes and increasingly aggressive policing:  1. Severe economic pressure. The frequency of crime in the “new economy” is attributable to the desperate measures many have resorted to. Many individuals have taken to industries that are  illicit or semi-illicit: multi-level marketing, money laundering, and crypto-fraud. A number of businesses with falling...

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As PRC Outlasts Soviet Union, Xi Jinping Warns of “Stormy Waves”

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The People’s Republic of China celebrated its 75th anniversary on Tuesday, October 1. The anniversary is both political spectacle and the advent of a week-long holiday marked by decidedly apolitical leisure travel. On the eve of the anniversary, Xi Jinping delivered a speech in front of 3,000 guests, both foreign and domestic, in the Great Hall of the People. At The Guardian, Helen Davidson wrote about the relatively muted political celebrations in Beijing:  “The road ahead will not be smooth, there will definitely be difficulties and obstacles, and we may encounter major tests such as...

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On September 12, 2003, John Battelle published the first post on chinadigitaltimes.net: Here’s what a Google Search on “china weblog” yields, I’m looking forward to seeing ours at the top soon! China’s online population at the start of that year was nearly 60 million. Ten years later, it was fast approaching 600 million, and now, after 20, it is well over a billion. This new completely revised and hugely expanded update to our ebook series, formerly known as “the Grass Mud Horse Lexicon,” aims to capture something of the enormous explosion of online speech that accompanied this growth, with...

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Another Militant Attack in Pakistan Kills Chinese Citizens, Imperils Chinese Investments

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