As of January 7, the following search terms are blocked on Sina Weibo (not including the “search for user” function).
“With every flower, blossoms power.”
– 289: Protesters gathered outside Nanfang Media Group’s headquarters at 289 Guangzhou Avenue today.
– Guangzhou Avenue (广州大道)
– press office (报社)
– present flowers (献花): Protesters have been leaving chrysanthemums (a flower of mourning and honor) and jasmine (perhaps an allusion to calls for a “jasmine revolution” in 2011) in front of Nanfang Media’s press offices. Beijingers left flowers for Google when it closed its mainland China operation in 2010.
– NF: Abbreviation for “Nanfang” (南方), meaning “southern.”
– nanzhou: Abbreviation for “Nan Zhou” (南周), as in “Nanfang Zhoumo” (南方周末), “Southern Weekly.”
– southern + weekend: Although its official English title is “Southern Weekly,” “Zhoumo” (周末) literally means “weekend.”
– joint statement (共同声明): Southern Weekly staff issued a joint statement [zh] on its official Weibo account after it was seized by authorities to apologize for the factual errors in the introduction added to their New Year’s message.
– freedom of the press (新闻自由)
– press prohibition (报禁)
See also Sensitive Words updates from January 3, January 4, and this morning.
All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results.
Browse all of CDT’s collected sensitive words in this bilingual Google spreadsheet.
CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese’s latest sensitive words post.
