On July 25, 2014, the state sponsored China Daily published an article entitled “
Critics Busy as Giant Toad Floats Into Beijing.” An excerpt:
An inflatable golden toad that first appeared in Beijing earlier this month in an attempt to emulate the success in China of the Rubber Duck created by Dutch designer Florentijn Hofman has stirred controversy on the Internet.
Guo Yongyao, chairman of Ningbo Jinluban Carpentry Co, designed the toad in December and said his initial intention was to compete with Western art and raise funds for the protection of cultural relics.
These screenshots were taken on July 27, and show that Baidu had banned users from establishing PostBar (Tieba 贴吧) forums on "Toads" (蛤蟆) and "Rivers" (江).
These screenshots were taken on July 23, and show that both
Tencent and Sina Weibo were not censoring searches for “Gold Toad”
(金蛤蟆), but was censoring searches for “Gold Toad River” (金蛤蟆 江).
