Fei Chang Dao

Protesters in Renhuai, Guizhou On July 23, 2012, the state-sponsored Global Times reported : Thousands of residents of Renhuai, southwestern China's Guizhou Province took to the streets on Friday and Saturday to protest inadequate compensation offered to farmers after the local government expropriated  their land to make way for an industrial park that will turn the city into "the Liquor Capital of China." According to a press release posted on the local government's official website, the mass gathering was incited by a dozen farmers, and government offices and vehicles were damaged by the crowd that had gathered. Witnesses, however, said around 7,000 people gathered in front of the government building of Tanchang town in Renhuai, and thousands of armed police were dispatched in the city. The screenshot, taken on July 23, shows that a search for "Renhuai" (仁怀) on Sina Weibo returned no results, just a notice saying: "In accordance with releva

On July 13, 2012, the state-sponsored Global Times reported : The official Sina Weibo account of the US Consulate General in Shanghai became "inaccessible" since Thursday morning for unknown reasons, a diplomat has told the Global Times. "We discovered our Consulate Shanghai's official Sina Weibo page cannot be accessed since the opening hour of business at 8 am on Thursday morning. We're now trying to find out why," Wylita Bell, an information officer for the US Consulate General in Shanghai, said. . . . . According to latest Sina regulations that took effect in May, any accounts that published more than five pieces of sensitive information that violate Chinese laws, contain rumors, or leak national secrets will be asked to delete the information and be punished by being barred from posting for over 48 hours. For those who maliciously post sensitive information, their accounts will be shut down. This follows the recent shutdowns of the Weibo accounts

On July 6, 2012, the following announcement appeared on the Baidu "Tieba Notice Board" - http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1706986305 : [Notice] Say Goodbye to the Anonymous IP Party, Anonymous Posting Functionality on Tieba to be Taken Offline To All Bar Friends: Owing to the fact that currently utilization of anonymous posting to engage in malicious activities such as publishing fake ads and harmful information is running rampant, to the point where it is interfering with normal browsing and discussions between moderators and users, on July 12 Tieba will eliminate online anonymous posting, clean up Tieba's discussion environment, and safeguard the interests of the majority of the Great Bar's users. 【公告】告别ip匿名党，贴吧匿名发贴功能将下线 各位吧友： 鉴于目前利用匿名发贴功能发布虚假广告和有害信息的恶劣行为日益猖獗，对吧主管理和吧友的正常浏览讨论造成较大干扰，贴吧拟定于7月12日取消贴吧线上匿名发贴，净化贴吧讨论环境，维护广大吧友权益。 On July 12, 2012, the following announcement (which originally appeared on the Baidu "Tieba Notice Board" on May 12, 2012) was bumped to the

From at least June 26 through July 9, 2012, searching on Sina Weibo for "The Truth" (真相) returned no results, just a notice saying "In accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, search results for 'the truth' have not been displayed." (根据相关法律法规和政策，“真相”搜索结果未予显示。) The screenshot below was taken on June 26.

 On July 3, 2012, the Hong Kong based Oriental Daily reported : Yesterday evening thousands of villagers in Lufeng, Shanwei in Guangdong held a large demonstration in front of the township government to express their dissatisfaction over local officials colluding with black-hearted enterprises to undertake large scale strip mining of rare earth minerals near where drinking water for nearly one million people would be polluted. They clashed with riot police on the scene, and many police cars were overturned. . . . . An Internet user exposed materials online pointing out suspicions that officials and business people in Daan village in Lufeng, Shanwei were colluding, and had been mining rare earth minerals upstream from the Niujiaolong reservoir for over a year, causing pollution of the reservoir to the point where schools of fish were dying, and threatening the safety of drinking water for nearly one million people in several local villages. 广东汕尾陆丰数千村民，因不满当地村官与黑心企业勾结，大肆开采山头稀土致近百万人

On July 7, 2012, the Shanghai Daily reported: Tianjin City in northern China yesterday published a list of 10 victims who died in a shopping mall inferno in a bid to refute rumors that at least 378 people died in the fire. The city government's list, posted online yesterday, shows that nine of the 10 victims were shop assistants working on the fourth and fifth floors of the mall. Only one customer is said to have been killed in last Saturday's blaze. The 10 women were aged between 25 and 44. This screenshot shows that on July 7 Sina Weibo was censoring searches for "378."

These screenshots, taken on July 7, 2012, show that for searches for Bo Xilai (薄熙来) Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜) and Gu Kailai (谷开来) Baidu claims to have found 765k, 12k, and 8.4k results, respectively. In each case, however, Baidu only returns only one result - its own Baidu Baike article. This represents an increase in censorship from last May, when Baidu was also returning results from a white list of about a dozen websites controlled by the central government and the Communist Party.

Last month the following announcement appeared on the Jimdo website: Owing to restrictions imposed by China's laws relating to the Internet and the demands of relevant agencies, on June 27 Jimdo will officially cease all free website services for the mainland China region. We express our heartfelt apologies to Jimdo users for any inconvenience and difficulty that this may bring you. As of July 27 all free Jimdo websites will no longer be accessible. If you are a Jimdo free website customer, you may: 1. Between June 27 and July 27, you may make a one time payment of 99 renminbi to retain your website's operation and accessibility on a permanent basis. 2. Between June 27 and July 27, you may upgrade you website to a professional or business edition, and retain your website's operation and accessibility on a permanent basis. 鉴于中国互联网相关法律的约束及有关管理部门的要求，Jimdo将于6月27号正式停止在中国大陆地区的所有免费建站服务。对于由此给您带来的不便与困扰，我们在此向所有Jimdo用户表示由衷的歉意！ 所有Jimdo的免费网站将于7月27号正式停止访问。如果您是Jimdo的免费网站用户，您可以：

On July 1, 2012, the Associated Press reported : A Hong Kong reporter briefly threw Chinese President Hu Jintao's tightly scripted visit to the semiautonomous city off course Saturday by asking about the 1989 military crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square.  The reporter for the Apple Daily newspaper said he was detained for about 15 minutes after the incident by three to four security officers, who told him he was too noisy and had broken rules. Other reporters also shouted questions to Hu, but they weren't detained. Hu was touring a new cruise ship terminal when the reporter shouted out a question to him from behind a security cordon.  "President Hu, have you heard that Hong Kong people hope to reverse the verdict of June 4?" the reporter, Hon Yiu-ting, asked. "Have you heard?" The screenshots show that searches on Sina Weibo on July 2 for: "Hon Yiu-ting" (曾健超) returned no results, just a notice saying "In accordance with rel

On July 1, 2012, the New York Times reported : Huge crowds of protesters thronged the streets of Hong Kong on Sunday afternoon, hours after President Hu Jintao of China swore in a new chief executive and cabinet for the territory. Surging down broad avenues between high-rises in a central shopping district, the protesters marched toward two government office complexes carrying a variety of banners. A wide range of causes were represented, including greater democracy in Hong Kong and calls for better state pensions and day care. But the most common theme was derision toward Hong Kong’s new chief executive, Leung Chun-ying. Democracy activists contend that he is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” whose sympathies for the Chinese Communist Party may lead him to roll back some of the city’s cherished civil liberties — although Mr. Leung has denied that. This screenshot shows that a search on Sina Weibo on July 2 for "July 1 take to the streets" (七一 上街) returned no results, just