How Chinese censors went from targeting Winnie the Pooh to memes and Zhuhai car rampage

SINGAPORE: As China mourns its deadliest mass killing in years, Chinese internet censors have been kept busy scrubbing social media sites and search engines, as netizens asked why it took almost 24 hours to release information about the Zhuhai car ramming. 
On Monday (Nov 11), a driver rammed his car into a sports centre in Zhuhai, mowing down people, killing 35 while injuring dozens. The man, later identified as a 62-year-old surnamed Fan, had “forced his way into the city’s sports centre, ramming people who were exercising”, the police said on Tuesday. 
News of the attack broke on Weibo on Monday night and began trending among users, many expressing shock and horror as images and videos of the aftermath circulated widely across the site. 
Dozens of heated comments, critical of “delayed efforts” by local authorities in communicating information from the ground, were seen on several Weibo posts before they were removed within the hour. 
Weibo users also took to the accounts of state media outlets, commenting on coverage of a military air show that was also taking place in the city and questioning the lack of coverage about the attack. 
Comments seen by CNA were hidden minutes later, with the comments sections on posts disabled. 
Images showing the extent of the crime scene, blood and bodies lying in the street, were eventually removed on Weibo, although it remains unclear if they were censored due to graphic imagery. 
While some comments and posts were still visible as of Friday, statistics showing likes, reshares and other activity were not available, showing error messages instead. 
One user, “cong xiao tian dao da”, on Weibo wrote: “This incident is really being suppressed … nothing showed up when (searching) any words related to Zhuhai on Douyin and Weibo”
Another Weibo user, MagicParty, remarked that the Zhuhai attack may be “downplayed” soon.
“It’s just another incident, everyone can leave now. Search Zhuhai and all that shows is the (Zhuhai) Air Show. If the air show is so important, then how important are those involved in the incident?”
Some accounts quoting eyewitnesses also briefly circulated online before being deleted by censors, reported the South China Morning Post (SCMP). “Luckily it’s Monday, otherwise many minors could have been killed or injured,” one post said. 
Photos published on Wednesday by the Caixin Media outlet showing local residents laying flowers and wreaths outside the sports centre were deleted for unknown reasons, the SCMP report added. 
The censorship was expected, experts said, especially in the aftermath of a serious tragedy. 
Dr Luwei Rose Luqiu, a researcher at Hong Kong’s Baptist University, told Reuters that the way information about the Zhuhai attack had been curtailed online had been consistent with other incidents that involved significant numbers of deaths.
“It’s normal because all these incidents are censored to try to control the narrative,” she said.
“The police statement will be the only official explanation, and they won’t allow people to challenge or to discuss it.” 
But the Zhuhai car attack has not been the only event in recent weeks deemed sensitive enough by internet regulators.
During Halloween – seen by some as a symbol of Western culture in China – photos and videos showing young Chinese Halloween revellers being escorted away by police were swiftly removed from Weibo and Douyin as arrests played out in cities like Shanghai and Hangzhou.
Some users managed to evade censors by using acronyms such as “JC”, the same as “jingcha” or police in Mandarin, to talk about arrests taking place on the streets of Shanghai.
Halloween searches were heavily filtered on Weibo, yielding only images of state approved celebrations that were held in Shanghai Disneyland and the US Embassy in Beijing.
In China, topics deemed sensitive by the state, such as references to the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident and comparisons between President Xi Jinping and Winnie the Pooh, have long been scrubbed off domestic search engines and social media platforms.
But in the latest clean ups, even seemingly non-political phrases and terms are being targeted by Chinese cyber authorities. 
China’s national internet regulator recently announced it would be targeting online jargon and slang being used on search engines and across social media sites. 
Younger Chinese internet users “use acronyms a lot and different types of slang”, said Ms Yew Chiew Ping, an associate professor at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), who cited the popular example of “AWSL”, an acronym for “a wo si le”, meaning ‘thrilled to death’ in Mandarin.
“Many of these acronyms are apolitical,” Ms Yew told CNA. “In view that the Chinese censors are also targeting these apolitical internet slangs in the latest clean up, we may say that internet freedom is more restrictive under the Xi government.” 
The “Clear and Bright” cyber campaign will target “irregular and uncivilised” terms and language used online, said the Cyber Administration of China (CAC) in a statement released on Oct 11, and will also focus on “rectifying prominent problems” like distorting Chinese characters and their pronunciations, making up online jargon, as well as the “abuse” of obscure expressions. 
Weeks later, the CAC announced a follow-up campaign that would target “illegal and harmful content” being circulated on popular online discussion platforms. 
“It will target those spreading rumours and misinformation about public policies and social issues,” reported the state-owned Global Times newspaper, adding that some internet users would resort to producing “sensational conspiracy theories”. 
“They create tragic personas, fabricate distressing stories, and stage videos of tragic experiences to exploit public sympathy,” the statement read. 
For billions of Chinese internet users, using Mandarin puns and homophones, memes and other cleverly disguised internet jargon terms has been essential in evading state censors to keep conversations about controversial topics going. 
Banana peel for example, translates to “xiang jiao pi” in Mandarin, which shares the same acronym as President Xi’s name. So to avoid being detected by censors, netizens would refer to Mr Xi as “xiang jiao pi” online, in place of his formal name. 
Shrimp moss, or “xia tai” in Mandarin, sounds similar to saying “step down”.
“Xiang jiao pi xia tai” (which can also be said using emojis) is heard as an online cry for President Xi to resign. 
“He xie”, the words for harmony and river crab sound similar in Mandarin and have been used interchangeably by Weibo users to talk about censorship on the site. 
With the characters for river crab now banned, yielding dead end results, Weibo users have subbed in other seafood like fish. 
Some observers are concerned about censorship becoming more pervasive and sophisticated especially amid the Chinese government’s push to lead the world in generative AI. 
“What you see in recent years is that the government has tightened such censorship, so now even these terms people have invented to evade censorship are now targeted,” said Maya Wang, Associate China Director at Human Rights Watch.
But “completely eradicating” the use of puns and wordplay from the internet is highly unlikely, said Ms Yew. “The relationship between Chinese netizens and state censors is a cat-and-mouse game given the decentralised and fragmented nature of the internet,” she said. 
“Chinese netizens, 1.09 billion of them as of Dec 2023, will continue to create new expressions to elude the censors,” she added. “The cat-and-mouse game may just become more intense.”
Earlier in May, a wave of suspensions hit China’s super rich elite online after several social media sites and platforms announced that they were complying with the state and cracking down on negative content that flaunted wealth and promoted materialism. 
Tencent, Douyin and Xiaohongshu, China’s biggest social platforms, were just a handful of companies that took a stand against “negative value-oriented content”. 
Weibo administrators announced it had taken action on users and content that “showed off wealth and money worship” as well as “extravagance and waste” – “cleaning up” more than 1,000 posts of “bad value” behaviour. A total of 27 accounts were banned or suspended on the site, officials said. 
Tencent Holdings, which runs the popular instant messaging software QQ, announced it had targeted accounts “promoting materialism” and extravagant lifestyles – deleting more than 6,000 pieces of content and “dealt with 36 illegal accounts”. 
However, not even the most outspoken pro-government voices are safe from censors. 
The apparent censorship of former Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin on his official social media accounts set tongues wagging online after Mr Hu went silent for more than three months, shortly after making misplaced comments in late July that misconstrued the results of an important third plenum party meeting on economic strategy. 
Ultranationalist blogger Sima Nan, known for his unabashedly strong anti-Western views, has reportedly been “banned across social media platforms” allegedly over support for US president-elect Donald Trump. 
The silencing of hardcore party loyalists not only demonstrates the growing wrath of Chinese censors, it also points to signs of increasing state paranoia. 
Mr Hu’s “gaffe” showed how China’s ruling government had “little tolerance” for those who misinterpreted its policies, even “hardcore supporters”, Ms Yew said.
“His comments on Chinese state-owned enterprises came at a time when China’s economy was slowing down,” Ms Yew said, also noting that internet censorship in the country had become “increasingly sophisticated and multipronged” in recent years. 
“In the eyes of the state, the comments may have been construed as a veiled criticism of not just the state’s crackdown on private enterprises but also the return to socialist ideology that upholds public ownership, both of which bear the strong imprint of President Xi Jinping,” she added.