{"id":133007,"date":"2012-03-08T19:46:06","date_gmt":"2012-03-09T02:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=133007"},"modified":"2012-03-08T19:48:18","modified_gmt":"2012-03-09T02:48:18","slug":"weibo-analysis-reveals-censorship-patterns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/03\/weibo-analysis-reveals-censorship-patterns\/","title":{"rendered":"Weibo Analysis Reveals Censorship Patterns"},"content":{"rendered":"
A team at Carnegie Mellon University has analysed tens of millions of Sina Weibo posts, uncovering patterns in China’s “soft censorship”<\/a>\u2014the\u00a0deletion of existing posts, as opposed to the “hard censorship” of pre-emptive blocking. The project was conceived when researcher David Bamman noticed the mass deletion of Jiang Zemin death rumours last summer<\/a>. From New Scientist:<\/p>\n “What was \u2026 interesting was that messages you’d expect to have been deleted all the time – like mentions of the Falun Gong [spiritual movement] or the dissident and artist Ai Weiwei – were not done so every time. It would seem to suggest that there is no automatic, blanket deletion going on,” says Bamman. Rather it points to a high level of human involvement and a nuanced approach.<\/p>\n The censorship mechanism is also agile – able to turn its attention to troublespots on demand. “This is the most surprising thing that we saw,” says Bamman. “In Tibet there was an overall deletion rate of 53 per cent – against 12 per cent in Beijing and 11 per cent in Shanghai \u2026.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n