Thursday, April 29, 2021

How China's Top Search Engines Censor Results About Chloe Zhao's Oscar Win

On April 26, 2012, the state sponsored Global Times reported:

On Sunday, the film Nomadland directed by Chloe Zhao won the awards for best picture and best actress at the 93rd Academy Awards. Zhao also won best director for the film. This is good. When Zhao's film won the Golden Globe Awards in February, the Chinese public cheered for her. Later, people learned of her previous interview in which she made inappropriate remarks on China. Opinions about her changed. This is understandable.

The screenshot below was taken on April 29, 2012, and shows the report, originally available here - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202104/1222108.shtml - had been deleted.

The report can still be viewed here: https://web.archive.org/web/20210426075846/https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202104/1222108.shtml.

The screenshots below show that as of April 29, the Baidu, Qihoo, and Sogou search engines were returning no results for searches for "Chloe Zhao Oscar" [赵婷 奥斯卡]. 



This is extremely unusual. Normally this level of censorship is reserved for only the most politically sensitive individuals and events, such as:



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