Baidu Increases Censorship of Bo Xilai Family Names, Restricts Results to Own Baike

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.

"Relevant Agencies" Demands Forces Website Provider to Terminate Free Website Hosting

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：
1、从6月27日至7月27日，您可以通过支付99元人民币的一次性费用来保留您网站永久免费运行和访问。
2、从6月27日至7月27日，您也可以升级自己的网站到专业版或商业版，以保留网站的运行和访问。

According to the Jimdo website:

Jimdo puts the power of website creation in the hands of ordinary people. Anyone can share their passions and interests on the Internet -- on their own website -- simply and easily. Jimdo is free, and you don't need to know how to code or run a server to have a website. And not just any old website! You can start an online business, write a blog, send a newsletter, add your tweets, embed YouTube videos, link your Facebook Page, and embed almost any kind of widget you can imagine. Jimdo is a website creator for today's web.

Our motto is "Pages to the People!" -- because we are empowering every single person on the planet to make their voice heard. Whether you're young or old, coffee connoisseur or tea aficionado, Twitterati or literati, shutterbug, musician, student, crafter, or entrepreneur, there's a place for you at Jimdo.

Sina Weibo Censors Journalist's Call to Reassess Tiananmen

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 relevant laws, regulations, and policies, search results for 'Hon Yiu-ting' have not been displayed." (根据相关法律法规和政策，“曾健超”搜索结果未予显示。)

"Hong Kong Reassess" (香港 平反) returned no results, just a notice saying "In accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, search results for 'Hong Kong Reassess' have not been displayed." (根据相关法律法规和政策，“香港 平反”搜索结果未予显示。)

"Reassess" (平反) by itself returns over 1 million results.
 

 

Sina Censors Hong Kong March Information

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 a notice saying "In accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, search results for 'July 1 take to the streets' have not been displayed." (根据相关法律法规和政策，“七一 上街”搜索结果未予显示。)

 

New York Times' Sina Weibo Launched, Deleted, Relaunched, Re-Deleted

These screenshots show that the New York Times Sina Weibo was launched on June 27, 2012 at http://www.weibo.com/nytchinese. It was deleted the following day. It was re-launched on June 28, and was once again deleted the following day.

Shaxi and Zuotan: More Protests, More Cities Disappear From Sina Weibo

On June 27, 2012, the state-sponsored Global Times reported:

Hundreds of residents in Shaxi, in South China's Guangdong Province, yesterday confronted a barrage of police officers during demonstrations outside local government offices.

Police from Shaxi township, in the city of Zhongshan, confirmed the clash in a statement posted on their official Weibo account last night, saying the gathering began on Monday afternoon and lasted until early yesterday morning when the crowd was dispersed by police.

According to the statement, the protest was sparked on Monday afternoon, by the beating of a local elementary school student by a teenager from Chongqing in front of the school, before local security officers from Longshan village tied the teenager up and injured his face while trying to settle the fight.

The screenshots were taken on June 27, and show that between noon and 2:45, Sina Weibo began censoring searches for "Shaxi." (沙溪)

On June 28, 2012, the state-sponsored China Daily reported:

Also on [June 25], officials of Foshan's Zuotan village were interrupted in a meeting by a group of villagers who abducted them and put them in a minibus. The kidnappers allowed no one to send food and water to the officials, who included the head of the village and his deputy.

The two officials were held in the minibus for more than nine hours and were rescued by police officers the next morning.

The incident resulted in the injury of two villagers and damage to a police car. The police said they are not certain why the two officials were kidnapped.

The screenshot shows that a search for "Zuotan" (左滩) on Sina Weibo on June 27 returned no results, just a notice saying "In accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, search results for 'Zuotan' have not been displayed." (根据相关法律法规和政策，“左滩”搜索结果未予显示。).

Chinese Professor Calls for Less Censorship for Academia

On June 26, 2012, the state-sponsored Global Times published an editorial by Wu Chuke (吴楚克), a professor at the Minzu University of China (中央民族大学), entitled "Let There Be Fewer 'Sensitive Points' for Academic Research" (让学术研究少些“敏感点). Some excerpts:

These days the amount of freedom within the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has significantly progressed, and speech and publishing has relaxed a great deal. But we still often run into articles or content that is "too sensitive" and cannot be published, or situations where an article can only be published after the "sensitive content" has been deleted. To a certain degree, this makes it difficult to publicize true public opinion, and makes it impossible to bring the common wisdom to bear on major social issues, to the point where it creates opportunities for foreign media to make ad hoc judgments about the popular will in China.
. . . .
In fact, the particular government agency employees and publishing companies often cannot correctly grasp "what is sensitive and what is not sensitive," and "when is it sensitive and when it is not sensitive." This is in part because there volume of information is too great, and develops too quickly, such that any one person is unable to understand the specific circumstances. For example, this writer went to Taiwan to present a paper at a conference, but the relevant personnel believed it was too sensitive, when in fact the paper had already been published in a newspaper. They just didn't have time to read all the newspapers.

It is also in part because we hope to maintain a "Chinese-style unanimity between the top and the bottom" in front of outsiders. And some media refuse to publish media debates "for fear of hassles" citing grounds of "excessive sensitivity," lest foreign media, embassies, and other groups constantly create "hassles" for our publishers.
. . . .
Over the long run, this will lead people to blindly believe reports from overseas media about domestic events. In addition, all of the enormous energy spent on "unanimity between top and bottom" will be overwhelmed by a few "negative" news stories, and people will be more inclined to believe information from non-mainstream sources.

中国社会科学研究的自由度如今有了很大进展，舆论和出版也宽松很多。但我们还是常常会碰到文章或者内容“太敏感”不能发表，或者需要把“敏感内容”删除才能刊发的情况。这在某种程度上让真正的民意难以公开，也让公众智慧无法作用于重大社会问题上，反而还给国外媒体随意判断中国民意提供借口。
. . . .
实际上，具体政府管理部门人员和出版单位往往并不能准确把握“什么敏感和不敏感”、“什么时间敏感什么时间不敏感”。一是因为信息量太大、发展太快，一个人根本无法了解具体情况，比如笔者去台湾开会提交的论文，被有关人员认为太敏感，实际上该论文在报纸已公开发表，他们并没有时间查阅所有报刊。二是我们总希望对外保持“中国式的上下一致”，或者国外媒体和大使馆等机构经常找我们出版机构的“麻烦”，一些媒体便常常因为“怕麻烦”而以“太敏感”为由拒绝公开媒体辩论。
. . . .
长此以往，一方面导致人们盲目相信外媒对国内事件的报道；另一方面花了很大力气搞“上下一致”，被几个“负面”新闻就压倒了，人们更相信来自非主流的信息。