Following China’s unannounced naval exercises off the coast of Australia late last month, there has been a noticeable increase in Chinese social media content promoting the invasion (or “nabbing/seizing”) of Australia. There has...
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...
Chinese social media has been awash with interest in Netflix’s new series “3 Body Problem,” an adaptation based on the Hugo Award-winning novel by Chinese author Liu Cixin. On the day of its release, there was a huge spike in...
Israel’s war in Gaza has elicited increasing attention from the Sinophone world, as five months of violence have led to the deaths of 32,000 Palestinians, an imminent famine in northern Gaza, and little progress on freeing...
In recent weeks, two very familiar household names in China—Nobel prize-winning novelist Mo Yan and bottled water company Nongfu Spring—have come under fire from extreme Chinese nationalists, who have accused the pair of odd...
A recent question posted to the Q&A site Zhihu may have been intended to elicit praise about China’s state of political affairs, but has instead become the latest telling example of the pessimistic political mood in...
Chinese debate over Japan’s release of treated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has thus far been characterized by disinformation, nationalism, and heavy online censorship. This in turn has fueled fear...
Over the past month, in response to disappointing economic data, various Chinese government agencies have announced measures intended to stimulate household spending and bolster consumer confidence. China’s economy continues to...
A quickly retracted Zhejiang report on provincial cremation statistics has shed new light on China’s coronavirus death toll. The chaotic end of China’s zero-COVID policy in late 2022 led to a surge in infections and deaths...
On July 7, the Chinese Quora-like Q&A site Zhihu announced that users will no longer be able to post questions and answers anonymously. For existing content posted anonymously, users will be able to choose whether to keep it...
At times, parsing propaganda for deeper meaning is difficult. At others, the (unintentional) message is hidden in plain sight. In October 2018, one bus passenger in Guizhou’s Nayong County realized that a roadside billboard...
The new word “humineral” (人矿 rén kuàng) has taken the Chinese internet by storm and is now a sensitive word subject to censorship. First introduced in a now-censored Zhihu post on January 2, 2023, “humineral”—a portmanteau of 人...
The recent abrupt end to China’s “zero-COVID” policy has left many citizens feeling confused and dismayed, unsure how to best protect themselves and their families. There have been reports of Omicron outbreaks in many Chinese...
Several of China’s largest social media companies including Weibo, Douyin, Toutiao, Zhihu, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu have announced that they will display users’ IP addresses. The measure, which will affect the majority of...
A collection of 40 jokes about China’s “zero-COVID policy” and its enforcers was posted by @丁逸峰 on Zhihu, the popular Chinese question-and-answer site. Many are styled in the grand tradition of “Soviet Jokes,” which have, at...
The United States-led “Summit for Democracy”, which kicked off on December 8, is designed to reverse the trend of global democratic “backsliding.” It touched a nerve in China, triggering a wave of state- and Party-directed...
This series is a month-by-month recap of censorship instructions issued to the media by government...
The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been...
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
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