With hundreds of documented (and censored) online sobriquets, Xi Jinping is arguably the most nicknamed leader in recent Chinese history. To stay ahead of the censors, online Chinese have long resorted to using homophones,...
Today, June 15, is Xi Jinping’s 70th birthday. The birthday itself is a taboo topic on Weibo. Commentary has been restricted to state-affiliated accounts, all of which relay identical pablum about well-wishes from friendly heads...
The sight of a lone man standing before a row of tanks in Beijing is perhaps the most enduring image to emerge from the Tiananmen Protests of 1989. Photographs taken on June 5 of that year—one day after PLA troops crushed the...
The ten censored essays collected below are a first draft of an unauthorized history of the extraordinary year 2022, compiled by CDT Chinese editors. Toward the end of the year, discontent over the zero-COVID policy burgeoned...
The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. Cyberspace Administration of China 6:11 P.M., November 29, 2022 Notification: Thorough Clean-up and...
The extraordinary Sitong Bridge protest on October 13 sparked displays of solidarity and protest across China. Some of those moved by the protest have used Apple’s “AirDrop” function to share information about the solitary...
Censors have deleted an illustrated WeChat essay in which author “里尔李” (“Lierli,” a pen name), channeled the dark humor of Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” to grapple with her tortured relationship with PCR testing. “How I Learned To...
A solitary protestor hung two banners calling for Xi Jinping to be removed from office and exhorting the populace to “Be citizens, not slaves,” an extremely rare act of overt political defiance on the eve of the 20th Party...
A crackdown on “typos” used to spread “illegal and harmful information,” and the censorship of an unpublished draft novel, have illustrated the further narrowing of online speech in China ahead of the upcoming 20th Party...
This week, BBC Africa Eye released a documentary titled “Racism for Sale,” an investigation by Runako Celina and Henry Mhango into the Chinese video-making industry built on the exploitation of vulnerable Africans. Celina and...
China’s anti-war voices continue to suffer censorship as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine goes on. The dominant theme of online discourse is Russophilia, though at least some of that appears to have been orchestrated. The New...
Freestyle skier Eileen Gu and figure skater Zhu Yi, both American-born teenagers who chose to compete for Team China at the Beijing Winter Olympics, have made headlines in China for very different reasons. While Gu won gold and...
CDT Editor’s Note: As we enter 2022, CDT has compiled a special series of features for our readers, offering a look back at the people, events, controversies, memes and sensitive words that defined the past year. Some of this...
This post was co-written by Alex Yu. Late in the evening of November 2, Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai made an earth-shaking allegation: that a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee sexually assaulted her, and then...
Chinese internet users have just scored a rare win against censorship. On September 3, the swear word shǎbī 傻逼, politely translated as “dumbass,” was banned from Baidu’s messaging forum Tieba. In the aughts, a mythical creature...
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
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