Massive Internet Censorship Before and After 20th Party Congress is Beyond Ridiculous #censorship

The Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, has recently escalated its online censorship to ensure the safety of the 20th National Congress. The censorship has turned aggressive, especially after the appearance of anti-communist banners on Beijing's Sotong Bridge. The scope of censored vocabulary has expanded rapidly, and a large number of Weibo users have had their accounts suspended. In addition to political terms, many seemingly unrelated internet slang and anime are also banned. Foreign commentators say that the CCP's online censorship is getting ridiculous and is on the verge of eradicating the Chinese language. On the morning of October 13th, large anti-communist banners appeared on a bridge in Beijing. One read, no nucleic acid testing but food, no lockdowns but freedom, no lies but dignity, no cultural revolution but reform, no leaders but votes, no slaves but citizens. Although the banners were quickly taken down by the authorities and the protesters were arrested, the photos and videos went viral online. The CCP authorities panicked and immediately stepped up online censorship and imposed a blanket ban. On Weibo, search results for keywords related to the protest message have all been filtered. These so-called sensitive words included Haidian, Sotong Bridge, banners, slogans, and anything with bridge in them, and even the word Beijing is censored. Later, in order to kill the discussion completely, Weibo filtered searches for terms such as brave, courage, warrior, righteous, lonely warrior, emperor, abdicate, and step down. The Chinese Communist Party is very afraid. This is the equivalent of a fuse or perhaps a fuse for a color revolution of some kind. That's why it has censored this matter so vigorously. It's mainly because it is afraid of this event. Many of the banned words are used in everyday life. When people use them, they may just have a normal conversation, not necessarily about the incident. In addition to Weibo, mainland online platforms such as WeChat have also been heavily censored, with no exceptions, and a large number of WeChat groups have been suspended, and personal WeChat accounts have been permanently banned. A source said that October 13th was a day that the WeChat team had the most number of permanent bans since its inception. Overnight, more than a million accounts were permanently banned, and the number of permanently closed groups was countless. All WeChat users who shared photos of the bridge incident have been permanently banned. Now these technology companies, social media platforms, they have a mentality of I'd rather kill a hundred or a thousand by mistake than let one go. If the company is not properly vetted and there are omissions, then the CCP will immediately clamp down on your company. The wave of internet censorship surrounding the 20th Communist Party Congress has led to seemingly unrelated information being inexplicably shot and censored. For example, the comments section of Hong Kong singer Yishan Chan's song, The Lonely and Brave, on NetEase Cloud Music was censored. The song Sittong Bridge by the Chinese band Mr. Not Elegant was also taken down. What's more absurd is that the term One Click Three Links originally refers to the function to like, tip, and favorite a song at the same time by pressing and holding the like button on the mainland video platform Bilibili. It has no political metaphor in itself, but was banned as well. Netizens speculate that the authorities may be worried that Three Links is being used to insinuate Xi Jinping's third term. In addition, Douban has removed the page of the Japanese anime Death Note and its derivative works. A former Sina Weibo censor told the Voice of America that the blocking of One Click Three Links and Death Note may seem absurd, but it's actually just part of the regular censorship of the 20th Communist Party Congress. He lamented, Sensitive vocabulary is getting so broad that the Chinese language is being eradicated. Following the Sittong Bridge incident, the CCP acted frantically, banning numbers, arresting people, and imposing bans on numerous touchy words. A retired teacher from Shanghai University was surrounded and arrested by a group of police officers for retweeting about the incident. At the same time, Beijing hired bridge watchers to monitor bridges in the city around the clock. In spite of the CCP's vigilant slogans such as anti-dictatorship and anti-nucleic acid testing appeared in many public restrooms in Beijing, including the China Film Archive during the 20th National Congress. At the same time, a large number of protest banners and spray paint were also seen in public places, such as in the city of Xi'an. Netizens say that Peng Zhaizhou, the man who hung the banners, has started a ripple effect, inspiring protest slogans everywhere in the country. Many netizens commented that since protest slogans have emerged in China's public washrooms, the CCP authorities better hire toilet attendants as a matter of urgency.