Late in the evening on Tuesday, June 6, WeChat simultaneously deleted dozens of LGBTQ+-related public accounts. A number of these were run by student groups at China’s most prestigious universities, and had operated for years...
In recent years, WeChat has increasingly been used as a distribution platform for “fake news” on a variety of topics including elections in the U.S. and Australia and COVID-19. On June 6, the WeChat public account @新岭南观察 (New...
China’s internet watchdog has announced new rules designed to crack down on “self-media” accounts, the social media accounts of independent citizen journalists and content creators that have flourished on...
An essay by writer Wei Zhou (@维舟) published to WeChat last week describes a dissonant way of thinking increasingly common in China, in which people are able to maintain optimism about the state and trajectory of the nation...
New investigations by ChinaFile and The New York Times reveal the complexities of the vast and diffuse organs tasked by the Chinese state with understanding (and manipulating) online public opinion. The Great Firewall, the...
While Beijing remains silent on the U.S. election as the world continues to wait for clear results, “America-watching” has gained a new level of popularity among Chinese web users. As an official censorship directive on the...
The Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that it had arrested eight people for aiding the Chinese government in harassing and intimidating dissidents living in the United States. According to the FBI, the efforts were...
Earlier this month NetEase user @YouyouXishuoDianying wrote an essay expressing concern over personal privacy in the age of big data. The essay outlines an experience with targeted corporate advertisement on WeChat, and joins...
Beijing-based publisher and film producer Geng Xiaonan was detained along with her husband and business partner Qin Chen on September 9 for suspected "illegal business operations." Geng had been an outspoken advocate...
CDT has recently acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central Party authorities to state media at the beginning of this year. These directives were issued on an almost daily basis in early 2020,...
CDT has recently acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central Party authorities to state media at the beginning of this year. These directives were issued on an almost daily basis in early 2020,...
On WeChat earlier this month, user @FeichaiQingnian (“Feichai Youth”) posted an essay on their initial reaction to a post by the official Weibo account of the Xi’an Metro—and their feelings after learning that...
Following the U.S. State Department’s announcement last month of a “Clean Network” initiative aimed at protecting against threats posed by Chinese tech firms, President Trump on August 6 unveiled an executive...
On Monday, Indian authorities announced a ban on dozens of Chinese apps including WeChat, Weibo, and TikTok. The official statement on the ban cited national security and consumer privacy, reflecting a broader global trend of...
The coronavirus outbreak in China highlighted the nation’s huge “digital divide”—the uneven distribution of information technology’s accessibility, use, and impact between different socioeconomic and demographic groups. At the...
In 2020, CDT Chinese editors launched the CDT Censorship Digest series. The series will collect and quote from news and online speech that was censored by Chinese authorities during the previous month, as well as summarize...
Last month, as authorities were scrambling to contain any shred of unauthorized information or public backlash to the official response to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, a new round of “account bombing” (炸号) swept...
The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. The name of the issuing body has been omitted to protect the source. Delete the article...
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
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