Sina Weibo Starts Censoring Search Results for "Zhou Ziyu Apologizes"

Huang An's Sina Weibo post.

At 10:52 pm on January 15, 2016, the singer Huang An (黃安) posted the following on his verified Sina Weibo account:

Zhou Ziyu has finally come out and apologized! With her own mouth she admitted that there is only one China, that the two sides of the straights are of one body, and that in all ways she see herself as Chinese, and proud of it! How long have we awaited this day. Once again we've striven to bring a young child back to identify with the motherland. The people of the motherland have one again achieved a major milestone on the road of anti-Taiwan independence. Everyone reshare!

周子瑜终于出来道歉了！她亲口承认中国只有一个，海峡两岸是一体的，她始终为自己是一个中国人感到骄傲！我们终于等来这一天！我们又争取回一个认同祖国的好孩子。祖国人民再次在反台独道路上取得巨大成就。大家转起！

Link to Huang An's post: http://weibo.com/2489313225/Ddicvrhlc?type=comment#_rnd1452935618397

Zhou (Chou Tzu-yu 周子瑜) is a 16 year-old member of JYP Entertainment's South Korean pop group TWICE.

The first screenshot below shows that, shortly after midnight on January 16, “Zhou Ziyu Apologizes” (周子瑜道歉) was Number 1 on Sina Weibo’s list of “Hot Topics.” The top search result was from the verified Sina Weibo account of the “Hunan University of Arts and Sciences” (湖南文理学院微博协会) and read:

JYP ultimately issued an apology along with Zhou Ziyu, but only because its share price was plummeting, but even then over the last few days they've been brazenly cursing Chinese people on the foreign Internet as Chinese pig! jyp's errors in guiding public opinion has lead the foreign Internet,, including Korean Internet users, to undertake all kinds of slanders and attacks, and the deviation from the facts has damaged our reputation! Zhou Ziyu deleted her apology from Twitter and reposted tweets cursing pigs! We're not going to accept this muted apology

JYP公司因股价大跌才发表道歉声明和周子瑜道歉视频，然而前几天他们在外网上公然骂中国人Chinese pig！jyp的错误舆论引导，导致外网上包括韩国网民对我们中国网民进行各种污蔑攻击，事实的偏差让我们名誉受损！周子瑜把推特上的道歉视频删了还转发了骂猪的帖子！小编表示这道歉我们不接受

That post was subsequently deleted.

The second and third screenshots below show that by 11:00 am on the morning of the 16th, Sina Weibo was telling users it couldn’t find any search results for “Zhou Ziyu Apologizes.” Then a few hours later the same search returned a censorship notice.