Saturday, July 27, 2013

Baidu Censors "Xinhua Reporter Exposes Minister Accepted Bribes and Drank Human Milk"

On July 22, 2013, China-based web portal 163.com published an article entitled "Hong Kong Media: Xinhua Reporter Exposes Minister Accepted Bribes and Drank Human Milk." (港媒:新华社记者曝正部级官员接受贿赂喝人奶) An excerpt:
According to a report in the Ta Kung Pao, some officials are vicious beyond measure, and a Xinhua correspondent has published a post stating that several years ago a minister-level official participated in expensive parties thrown by wealthy businessmen at a time when he was still a deputy-minister. One of the dishes was the breast milk of a beautiful woman, and every guest was accompanied by a young, beautiful, naked girl. 
据大公网报道,有官员荒淫无度,新华社对外部记者周方发博文称,一正部级官员几年前仍是副部级官员时,曾在北京高级会所参加富商组织的宴会,有一道菜是美女人奶,即每位食客旁都来了一位全裸的美艳少妇。
This screenshot shows that a search for the title of that article in quotes on Baidu on July 27 returned no results, just a censorship notice.

These screenshots show why - shortly after the article was published, Baidu began restricting search results for the title of that article to a white list of about a dozen web site controlled by the central government and the Communist Party.
Baidu's censorship coincided with the publication of a denial of the story by Xinhua on China-based web portal Sohu's "Rumor" web site. According to that story:
We have learned that the correspondent Zhou Fang was merely an evening English editor, who usually did not take part in news reporting, and had absolutely no means of knowing what supposedly goes on behind the scenes, and his real name report is utter nonsense. The aforementioned [Xinhua insider] went on to disclose that every year Zhou Fang "exposes" something online, but everything he has exposed was proven to be false. 
获知这位对外部记者周方只是值夜班的英文编辑,平时不参与新闻报道,没有任何渠道获知所谓的内幕信息,实名举报更是无稽之谈。上述人士还透露,周方之前每年都会在网络上“爆料”,但所爆的料,都被证明是假消息。

Translation: Sun Daluo's Court Judgment for Sharing Books and Articles

The PRC government sentenced Sun Zhiming (孙志明, who wrote under the alias Sun Daluo (孙大骆)) to one year imprisonment for the crime of "di...