At around 5:00 am (Beijing Time) on October 26, the New York Times Published an article entitled "Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader" (总理家人隐秘的财富). An excerpt:
Many relatives of Wen Jiabao, including his son, daughter, younger brother and brother-in-law, have become extraordinarily wealthy during his leadership, an investigation by The New York Times shows. A review of corporate and regulatory records indicates that the prime minister’s relatives, some of whom have a knack for aggressive deal-making, including his wife, have controlled assets worth at least $2.7 billion.
Searching for "Wen Jiabao"
These screenshots, taken on October 27, 2012, show that Baidu restricts search results for Wen's name to its strict whitelist of approximately a dozen websites controlled by the government and the Communist Party. It also bans Tieba forums for Wen, and claims to be unable to find any results for Wen's name in both its Zhidao Q&A and Wenku document sharing products.
Searching for Family Members
Baidu also censors searches for the names of some (but not all) of Wen's family members. These screenshots, taken in January and February 2012, show that Baidu restricts search results for "Wen Yunsong" (温云松 - Wen Jiabao's son) to its strict whitelist of about a dozen websites controlled by the government and the Communist Party. It also bans Tieba forums on Wen Yunsong, and claims to be unable to find any results for Wen's name in its Zhidao Q&A product.
Searching for the New York Times Article
These screenshots were taken on October 26 about five hours after the publication of the New York Times' article, and show that Baidu was restricting search results for "New York Times," "纽约时报," and "nytimes" to its strict white list.
These screenshots show that, within a few hours Baidu stopped showing a censorship notice for searches for these terms.
This screenshot, taken on October 27, shows that when a user entered "Wen" (温) in Baidu's search box, Baidu offered two suggestions - "Wen 2.7 Billion" (温 27亿) and "Wen New York Times" (温 纽约时报).
These screenshots show Baidu's results for those two queries - in both cases there is only one result relevant to the New York Times' article - a post on a forum entitled "New York Times Investigation Uncovers Wen Family Fortune Worth at Least 2.7 Billion" (纽约时报调查揭发 温 一家财产至少27亿美元.)
These screenshots show that the post, originally available here - www.0060.cn/thread-280833-1-1.html - was deleted within hours.
On October 29, the official Communist Party newspaper The People's Daily published an editorial on its website by its former international news editor Ren Yujun. Ren's piece, entitled "In Recent Years the New York Times Piles Up Scandals and Loses Its Reputation" (《纽约时报》近年来丑闻叠出声望下降). The editorial did not discuss anything that had not been reported months (or even years) previously. Nor did it make any mention of the Times' report on Wen Jiabao.
These screenshots, taken hours after the People's Daily editorial was published, show that Baidu News was able to find eight results for a search for the title of the People's Daily editorial, but no results for a search for the title of the New York Times' article.
