CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content Archive.” Each month, we publish a summary of content blocked or deleted (often yielding the message “404: content not found”)...
Monday’s edition of the People’s Daily included a letter in the sports section that appeared to have been written by American basketball star Lebron James. Multiple news outlets initially reported that James had authored the...
In the wake of early August’s spontaneous mass protests in the city of Jiangyou, Sichuan province over official inaction in a severe bullying case, there has been unusually stringent online censorship of videos, photos,...
Following rare mass protests that broke out in the city of Jiangyou in Sichuan province earlier this month in response to the bullying of a 14-year-old girl, CDT Chinese editors have tracked unusually intense online censorship...
Across China, many women with rural hukou are systematically denied lucrative village land rights. Village assemblies, ostensibly autonomous local political organizations, decide who is a member of the rural collective and thus...
For the past several months, China’s State Council Information Office has been hosting a series of press conferences intended to showcase the accomplishments of various government ministries and provincial-level...
It is well known that many Chinese local governments are cash-strapped, burdened by excessive debt, and searching for ways to replenish their depleted coffers. Reports abound of local governments, utilities, and even police...
Xi Jinping’s New Era has inspired the creation of a host of “new chengyu”: idiomatic, often four-character, literary expressions that are the kernel of a larger tale. New Era chengyu are references to infamous incidents that...
Xi Jinping’s New Era has inspired the creation of a host of “new chengyu”: idiomatic, often four-character, literary expressions that are the kernel of a larger tale. The following New Era chengyu are all references to infamous...
At a recent summit in Ethiopia, the African Union (AU) decided to approve a 15-year continent-wide ban on the slaughter of donkeys for their hides. Donkey hides are a key component of the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)...
Today’s quote of the day comes from a CDT Chinese faux “Dragon Seal” visual about acclaimed sixth-generation filmmaker Wang Xiaoshuai’s battle to get his latest film “Above the Dust” 《沃土》(Wòtǔ, “fertile soil”) past...
In a recent essay, Lu Dewen (吕德文, Lǚ Déwén)—a sometimes controversial Wuhan University sociologist whose research focuses on rural governance—argues that bureaucratic formalism, meaningless busywork, and technological hegemony...
“Bridge builder” is normally a high compliment. For one family in Jilin province, however, bridge-building earned them charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” setting off another national debate about the...
Three years and three months after whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang’s death from COVID-19, the “Wailing Wall” that emerged in the comments section under his last Weibo post continues to serve as a repository for the hopes, dreams,...
This year, the United Nations’ theme for March 8 International Women’s Day was “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality.” In China, people marked the holiday with a variety of thought-provoking and creative...
Surveillance in Chinese cities is ubiquitous, with highly visible security cameras trained on most every intersection, public space, and building, but over the past decade, it has been seeping into the countryside as well. In an...
It has been nearly one year since a viral video of a woman shackled and chained in a freezing shed in Dongji Village (Feng County, Jiangsu Province) provoked widespread outrage among the Chinese public and triggered an...
The following censorship instructions have been distributed online. In order to create a festive and harmonious atmosphere for online discourse during Spring Festival, the Central Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has...
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
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