As of May 3, the following search terms are blocked on Sina Weibo (not including the “search for user” function).
Shanghai resident’s are protesting a new lithium ion battery factory.
Factory Protest Planned for Saturday: Chengdu netizens have been calling for residents to “take a walk” on Jiuyan Bridge tomorrow to protest the start of operations at the new Pengzhou Petrochemicals factory. Weibo about Pengzhou Petrochemicals have been deleted and blocked, while the Chengdu government has publicly stated that it has arrested netizens who have “disseminated rumors of protest.” On May 4th, 2008, residents protested the construction of the same factory.
Today, Weibo user Song Shinan posted that the authorities are requiring secondary school and university students to attend class on Saturday to keep them from protesting. Song’s account has since been deleted. Coincidentally, state media have also been covering the State Council Information Office’s “focused attack on rumor-mongering Weibo VIPs.”
• May Fourth+take a walk (5月4日+散步)
• May Fourth+demonstrate (5月4日+示威)
Shanghaiers Protest Battery Factory: Residents of Shanghai’s Songjiang district are protesting the construction of a lithium ion battery plant by Shanghai Guoxuan Electronics Ltd., fearing the manufacturing process will contaminate the water.
• Guoxuan (国轩)
• battery factory (电池厂)
Netizens Sleuth Poisoning Case: In 1994, then Tsinghua University student Zhu Ling was poisoned with thallium, most likely by her politically connected roommate. The bright, ambitious young woman suffered severe neurological damage. She is now paralyzed, nearly blind, and intellectually impaired. Netizens recently “reopened” her unsolved case on Weibo. Offbeat China looks at the history of case and its significance as a test of China’s rule of law, while Fei Chang Dao has tracked online censorship of netizen inquiry and demand for justice.
• Zhu Ling (朱令)
• Sun Wei (孙维): Zhu’s former roommate at Tsinghua.
• thallium poisoning (铊中毒)
• Tsinghua+poisoning (清华+中毒)
• Tsinghua+poison (清华+投毒)
• thallium (铊)
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.
