福利姬自慰

Censorship in China increases in wake of Liu Xiaobo's death: U of T's Citizen Lab

Protesters posted postcards to Liu Xiaobo earlier this month at the Chinese hospital caring for the cancer-stricken Nobel laureate (photo by Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images)

The University of Toronto's says the death of Liu Xiaobo last week led to increased censorship in China as people took to social media to express their grief.

on Monday reported on Citizen Lab's latest censorship findings from China. The Internet watchdog group, located at the Munk School Global Affairs, says there was a 鈥渟ignificant shift鈥 in censorship techniques in the days after Liu鈥檚 death, particularly on two of China鈥檚 most popular platforms: WeChat and Sina Weibo.

Citizen Lab, which has extensively studied social media censorship in China, found that general references to his death in Chinese and in English, and even just his name, were blocked on WeChat. The group points out that this is the first time images 鈥 including photographs of Liu and of people commemorating him 鈥 were blocked in one-to-one chats, as well as group chats and WeChat moments.

鈥淪ocial media platforms in China regularly censor content related to Liu Xiaobo and his legacy including 鈥楥harter 08鈥 and being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize as shown in previous research and user reports,鈥 Citizen Lab reported. 鈥淗owever, the death of Liu marks a particularly critical moment for the Communist Party of China (CPC) and, as a result, Chinese Internet companies are facing direct or indirect government pressure to apply broad restrictions to content related to Liu.鈥

The report stated there are signs that a younger generation in China is slowly forgetting the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests, and there's concern about whether Liu will meet the same fate. 

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