A host of measures intended to stifle dissent allowed Beijing’s military parade last week to take place without any major disruptions. The following is a summary of some of these examples of censorship and control. Some of these...
Recent articles have highlighted the ways in which various Chinese groups attempt to circumvent censorship in the liminal spaces of its enforcement. Across different domains, shifts in censorship capacity and communication...
June 4, the date of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, is among the most sensitive dates on the Chinese political calendar. Any attempts to draw attention to the event are routinely censored on the Chinese internet. This year, as...
The Open Technology Fund published a report earlier this month highlighting the rise of censorship-related jobs in China between 2015 and 2022. But growing evidence also shows that human-powered censorship is being increasingly...
A new report by the Open Technology Fund (OTF) explores the growing demand for human-powered censorship in China. While the Party-state under Xi Jinping has increasingly restricted political expression, expanded its censorship...
As the U.S. Supreme Court voted to uphold a law forcing either the sale or ban of ByteDance-owned TikTok, “TikTok refugees” continued flocking to the Chinese-language app Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote. The influx of new...
What to do when the law and basic humanity are in opposition? The Chinese internet has an answer: “Aim the rifle an inch higher” (枪口抬高一厘米, qiāngkǒu táigāo yī límǐ). The phrase is shorthand for subverting orders that violate...
Korea’s political crisis has spurred a host of commentary and reflection in China despite censorship. While state broadcaster CCTV issued minute-by-minute updates on the crisis, censors have taken down translations of articles...
A spate of “revenge against society” attacks that have left dozens dead and more injured over the last week-and-a-half have left many in China grasping for an explanation: what is driving these “Xianzhong” rampages? The short...
A murderous rampage in Zhuhai, Guangdong that left 35 dead and scores wounded was met with a now all-too-familiar refrain on the Chinese internet: “Xianzhong” is back. Zhang Xianzhong (张献忠, Zhāng Xiànzhōng), a Ming-era peasant...
Posting about politics on Weibo can sometimes look like a game of Russian Roulette: without knowing where the pitfalls lie, at some point one is bound to run into trouble. Hot takes can lead to quick suspensions. Asking for...
China Media Project has published a translation of an extended article by Qin Shi at the Mang Mang newsletter, detailing the work and attitudes of some of China’s legions of low-paid, overworked online content reviewers....
In a remarkable interview, a censor for one of China’s biggest search engines described what gets deleted from the Chinese internet and how—as well as their perspective on the morality of their work. The interview was...
The Chinese public has been transfixed and outraged by news of a decade-long scheme involving the theft and illegal sale of thousands of corpses for use as bone-graft raw material in dental procedures. A document leaked last...
The reported theft and illegal sale of thousands of human corpses for use as raw material in bone graft procedures has shocked the Chinese public and sparked a breathtaking wave of censorship online. Last Thursday, a Beijing...
News of plans to raise China’s retirement age, found in documents issued after the recently concluded Third Plenum, have ignited a social media firestorm. The text of the plenum’s “resolution,” published to Xinhua, held:...
Last week, Weibo censors took down a post by a popular food blogger describing how all her bank accounts were frozen due to a local police department’s arbitrary and unprofessional “anti-fraud” case work. Her Kafka-esque account...
A Party organization’s flippant invocation of “World War III” using video game terms went viral over the weekend, thrilling some nationalists but perturbing other Chinese netizens. The video was later removed from Bilibili and...
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