![]() In the early days of the internet in China, outside commentators confidently opined that Beijing’s attempts at internet control were doomed. Often discussion of Chinese internet censorship can be mocking and disbelieving, such as recent reports on attempts to wipe out mention of President Xi Jinping’s resemblance to Winnie the Pooh. While Liu’s case is an outlier in terms of the intense efforts to wipe out all mention of the deceased activist, it is in keeping with trends in Chinese online censorship that have been building since Xi assumed power in 2012. “The party keeps tightening censorship to an absurd degree,” said dissident artist Badiucao, who has launched a campaign to memorialize Liu worldwide. Sina and Tencent, which own Weibo and WeChat respectively, did not respond to requests for comment. Citizen Lab found that even in one-on-one chats, mentions of Liu Xiaobo’s name and photos of him were deleted when chatting with Chinese users. On Weibo, China’s most popular Twitter-like platform, users were prevented from posting messages with the words “Nobel,” “liver cancer,” “RIP” or the candle emoji, according to researchers at Toronto’s Citizen Lab and Hong Kong’s Weiboscope.Ĭensorship was also widespread on messaging app WeChat, which was once less filtered than Weibo because of its more private nature. The tiny minority who did attempt to express outrage online at Liu’s treatment, or commemorate him after he succumbed to liver cancer on July 14, saw their posts blocked and images deleted. ![]() As Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate, lay dying in a heavily-guarded hospital last month, there was little mention of his fate in China.įor many younger Chinese, Liu is an unknown figure, the culmination of years of intense censorship of his life and works.
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