As of November 14, the following search terms are blocked on Sina Weibo (not including the “search for user” function).
Who Moved My Weibo? In September, Reuters interviewed former employees of Sina Weibo’s censorship center in Tianjin.
- Weibo+censor (微博+审查)
- little secretary+censor (小秘书+审查)
Third Plenum: While Chinese tweeters had plenty to say about last weekend’s meeting, discussion on Weibo is tamped down by keyword blocking.
- Tiananmen+petitioners (天安门+访民): Petitioners staged a sit-in and distributed pamphlets near Tiananmen Square during the Third Plenum.
- Tiananmen+scatter pamphlets (天安门+撒传单)
- (Tian)anmen+sit-in ((天)安门+静坐)
Party Crashers: On November 6, Wang Zheng founded the Zhi Xian Party and made Bo Xilai “chairman for life.” Information about the new party has been swiftly censored from Chinese websites.
- Wang Zheng (王铮)
- Zhi Xian Party (至宪党)
Tiananmen Jeep Crash: Five suspects were detained after a Jeep crashed into a bridge railing at Tiananmen Square on October 27. Five people were killed and 40 injured when the car plowed through a crowd, then caught fire.
- Tiananmen+bomb (天安门+炸弹)
- Tiananmen+explosion (天安门+爆炸)
Miscellaneous Keywords:
- Bloomberg (彭博社): Retested. On November 8, The New York Times reported that Bloomberg News’ editor in chief curtailed the publication of an investigative report on a wealthy businessman’s ties to the families of top leaders in China. “He said, ‘If we run the story, we’ll be kicked out of China,'” one reporter explained. The Times then reported this Wednesday that Bloomberg uses a special code to keep politically sensitive articles from appearing on their financial and news terminals in China.
- constitutional court (宪法法院)
- (Xi) Jinping+Bo [Xilai] ((习)近平+薄)
- (Xi) Jinping+[Hu] Jintao ((习)近平+锦涛)
- premier+reform (总理+改革)
- time of death of the CCP (中共死期)
Via CDT Chinese.
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 on our 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.
Have a sensitive word tip? Submit it to CDT through this form: