In a remarkable interview, a censor for one of China’s biggest search engines described what gets deleted from the Chinese internet and how\u2014as well as their perspective on the morality of their work. The interview was published by Mang Mang, an independent Chinese-language magazine that publishes on Substack. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is rare for a censorship worker to speak so openly, even though China’s internet giants employ tens of thousands of them. ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, employs over 100,000 people, 20% of whom work as censors<\/a>. At Bilibili, a Youtube-style video sharing site, the percentage of employees that work in censorship is 27%. Collectively, censors (alongside algorithms) control the information that reaches China’s over one billion internet users<\/a>. Yet little is known about the people who do the work. Censors have been interviewed before\u2014Teacher Li Is Not Your Teacher interviewed a former censor<\/a> for his YouTube channel in 2023, for example\u2014but it is rare for one currently on the job to discuss their work. Q: Of all the content you must censor, which type is the highest priority?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A: [Anything related to] political security, of course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: What are the criteria for censoring political content? For example, what type of content is allowed, and what type gets censored?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A: We use the same criteria as domestic media, actually. Whatever they aren\u2019t allowed to report on, we\u2019re not allowed to let pass. The most obvious examples are content related to senior political officials and their family members, or to darker episodes in Communist Party history. We\u2019re mandated to delete all of those. Also, every year around June 4, many people post content about it, all of which we must censor. As June 4 approaches, we even have to pull overtime just to handle all the work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: So, as censors, you have to be especially cautious on particular dates such as June 4 and October 1 National Day?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A: Of course! As soon as those dates come up, there are always some people who, for some reason, try to stir the public\u2019s memory. As soon as the date draws near, they love to post about it. As we see it, June 4 has become a sort of \u201cfolk festival.\u201d During those particular periods, censorship guidelines and tactics undergo a temporary shift. Usually, it\u2019s \u201cLet them post first; we\u2019ll censor later.\u201d But around sensitive dates it’s \u201cCensor first.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n […] Q: What is the process for shutting down accounts?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A: There is no process. If I feel that an account has published something problematic, I can just shut it down. Afterwards, I pass a list of those suspended accounts to my supervisors at our contracting company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: You just give them a list of suspended accounts? There\u2019s no further review or evaluation required?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A: Nope. Shutting down accounts is simple. Sometimes you need to provide a reason why you shut it down\u2014for example, maybe they mentioned June 4. But for the most part, I have the authority to decide whether it\u2019s a permanent shuttering or a temporary suspension. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On Salary and Hours: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n […] Q: Are you willing to reveal your [monthly] salary as a censor?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A: At first, it was 4300 yuan [about $600, at current exchange rates], or about 4000 yuan [$560] after taxes. After my first year, it was raised to 6800 yuan [$950], or 6000 [$840] after insurance and taxes were deducted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: As a contractor, how long are your work days?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A: At first, they said it would be eight hours a day, but they didn\u2019t say how much work there would be. Later I learned that the workload varies a lot. If you don\u2019t finish within the allotted time, you have to work overtime with no extra pay. As the workload snowballed, I started to \u201ctouch fish<\/a>\u201d [slang for \u201cslack off\u201d]. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On Forbidden Words<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n […] Q: What sensitive words have you flagged?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A: A few come to mind: \u201cegg hole\u201d [a homophone for \u201cbullet hole\u201d] and \u201cSatan fried rice.\u201d [Both are puns mocking the death of Mao\u2019s son during the Korean War<\/a>. Internet legend has it that Mao Anying was killed by American bombers after he inadvertently revealed his position by lighting a fire to cook egg fried rice<\/a> on the battlefield.] Also \u201cnew\u201d and \u201cfrontier\u201d and all of their various homophones\u2014there are so many that they\u2019re not worth mentioning. [This is a reference to Xinjiang.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: How did they teach you about the Xinjiang labor camps?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A: They just showed us a documentary, which we watched, and that was it. The company\u2019s goal isn\u2019t to teach us the truth; it\u2019s to make us delete things. The purpose isn\u2019t the same, so the methods differ. In other words, they want us\u2014as cogs in the censorship machine\u2014to be aware that the topic is sensitive so that we\u2019ll delete anything that touches on it, but they don\u2019t care what we think or feel about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: Can people mention the \u201cPeople\u2019s Liberation Army\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A: Around sensitive dates, it is completely forbidden\u2014even comments praising the government and the PLA for restoring order are verboten. The point of this censorship is not to channel public opinion in a certain direction. Whether it\u2019s positive or negative is beside the point. The point is for censors to delete all evidence of an event in the hopes that the public will completely forget about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: How many training sessions have you attended at your current company?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A: About seven. The Xinjiang labor camp training made a deep impression on me, even though the sessions are totally lame. You really don\u2019t learn anything during them. The company just wants you to be aware of the existence of a certain thing or event, but we\u2019re not expected to remember the specific details\u2014forgetting those is fine. I actually believe the company hopes we will forget those after the training. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On A Censor\u2019s Moral Code<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n […] Q: So, your purpose [in being a censor] is simply to make more money?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A: Yup. I\u2019ve never felt guilty. It\u2019s just a job. And if I\u2019m going to do it, I should do it well. It\u2019s really uncommon for anyone to \u201caim high.\u201d [This is a reference to an apocryphal question from a presiding judge to an East German guard convicted of the last shooting of someone trying to flee over the Berlin Wall:<\/a> \u201cCouldn\u2019t you just have aimed your rifle one inch higher?\u201d] I doubt that really happened. It sounds like some intellectual dreamed it up. Could anything like that happen in real life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n That phrase \u201caim your rifle an inch higher\u201d must have originated from the fall of the Berlin Wall, right? All day long, those guards were trained to do this or do that. That sort of environment must have completely eroded their sense of morality. There\u2019s no way they\u2019d ever shoot to miss. And if a soldier did dare shoot to miss, and got caught by a superior officer, can you imagine what they\u2019d do to him? And how few people would even care?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: Does all this censorship and working with \u201cnegative\u201d information have a negative impact on your mental health?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A: Nah. I don\u2019t even feel politically pessimistic. To be honest, the only pressure from my job comes from worrying about mistakes. I\u2019m very afraid of making a mistake, which is to say I\u2019m afraid of not censoring bad content. As far as I can tell, none of my coworkers have any negative feelings either. Nobody cares about politics. These topics aren\u2019t related to our daily lives. One of my colleagues is actually Mao Zedong\u2019s biggest fan. Many see themselves as helping the nation avoid chaos and avoid societal instability. From that perspective, how could we feel pessimistic or worried about politics?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: Is there anything that makes you feel guilty?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CDT has selected extensive excerpts from the original Mang Mang piece for translation<\/a><\/strong>. The interviewee was born in 1997 and has been working as a censor since 2020. The translated selections range from discussion of forbidden words, to the quotidian concerns of salary and working conditions, and then conclude with an extended reflection on who bears responsibility for censorship in China:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
On Political Censorship:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On Shutting Down Social Media Accounts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n