Earlier this week, screenshots of “Ten Questions” about China’s pandemic policy began making the rounds on the Chinese internet and social media, attracting a great deal of interest and commentary. Those screenshots have now...
In apparent solidarity with the anti-regime protests currently gripping Iran, the Iranian men’s national soccer team refused to sing the national anthem before their opening match in the 2022 World Cup, which is being hosted by...
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...
Two years and eight months after whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang’s death from COVID-19, the “Wailing Wall” that emerged in the comments under his last Weibo post continues to serve as a repository for the hopes, dreams, worries,...
The below essay is a translation of WeChat blogger “Brother Lou’s” account of being invited to “drink tea” after sending a Weibo post questioning the integrity of a local Zhejiang police department. The essay was censored by...
On Saturday, October 22, Xi Jinping’s predecessor Hu Jintao was unceremoniously escorted out of the closing of the 20th Party Congress in front of the domestic and international press. Hu’s highly unusual exit, a major departure...
“Voices of July” continues CDT’s monthly “Voices of …” collection of viral and censored audio-visual content from all over China. Inspired by the original audio-visual compilation “Voices of April,” which was the target of...
Popular health-focused outlet DXY is the latest popular science outlet to run afoul of China’s censors and online nationalists. Five DXY Weibo accounts, with a combined total of more than 30 million followers, were...
Popular online writer Shen Maohua, who writes under the pen name Wei Zhou, is known for his trenchant and often humorous essays, lively social media comments sections, and occasional brushes with platform censors. In this...
Dandong has been under intermittent lockdown (“static management” in the municipal government’s preferred euphemism) since April 25 of this year. The northeast city bordering North Korea is but the latest frontier town to bear...
A list of ten “forbidden” behaviors posted to (and then deleted from) the public WeChat account of China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU) in Beijing seemed to reveal discontent with strict pandemic controls among the country’s...
Journalist Lian Qingchuan’s reflection on Tuesday’s relaxation of COVID control restrictions in Shanghai was originally posted on WeChat, but deleted for “violating relevant laws and regulations.” Lian subsequently reposted it...
A Shanghai resident’s defiant response to a local police officer’s warning that non-compliance with the city’s COVID policy would have a deleterious impact on the man’s future offspring went viral across Chinese social...
An essay tracing the evolution of Shanghai lockdown memes from giddy jests about Shanghai culture to gallows humor and gloomy meditations on the state of society was censored last week after going viral on Weibo. The essay,...
On Monday of last week, Malaysian musician Namewee (Wee Meng Chee, 黃明志) learned that his YouTube account had been hacked and all of its content deleted. His account, created in 2006, had 3.27 million subscribers and over 1,000...
A group of students under the impression they had discovered a WeChat “bug” that hides the phrase “200 jin of dumplings” (roughly 220 pounds) had in fact stumbled upon an obscure insult for Xi Jinping that triggers automatic...
This week saw the proliferation of COVID conspiracy theories on Chinese social media, the suppression of a popular hashtag about the Xuzhou trafficking and abuse case, and a Global Times broadside aimed at discrediting the...
CDT Chinese has recently archived and republished four essays, censored in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that reveal the topics that Chinese authorities perceive to be sensitive. Two of the essays deal with the...
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