People of China smacked Weibo censors right across the face. This is how
The Chinese government has restricted citizens' activities over the internet since many years. But last night, people of China found a clever way to criticise the government on Weibo.
China is a strange country. They have the weirdest censorship rules and restrictions on the internet and all other forms of media. In simple words, you cannot always watch what you want to or say what you want to say.
Due to China's Internet Censorship Policy, websites like Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, Netflix, Reddit and several others are banned in the country.
They have their own versions of most of the social media platforms. Weibo, populary referred to as the Chinese Twitter, is one such example.
Weibo has been fined several times for breaking censorship rules. But, this time Weibo users found a smart way to deal with thecensorship.
WHAT HAPPENED:
A journalist, Wenhao, shared a long thread on Twitter explaining what happened on Weibo on Wednesday night in China.
Weibo users in China started criticising the government for mismanagement of Covid in Shanghai, and other social issues. People went on and on highlighting the Covid crisis.
It's gone unnoticed by many. So I felt like I should properly document what just happened on Weibo today. Netizens in China, for just a few hours, got to unleash their wrath on the Chinese government for how they handled the Covid crisis in Shanghai and other social issues.
— Wenhao (@ThisIsWenhao) April 13, 2022
Around midnight, the top two trending topics on Weibo were:
a) Shanghai handles several rumours regarding Covid.
b) 'US is biggest human rights deficit country'
AND TAKE NOTE:
For context, topics of this scale of sensitivity don't top the chart unless the authorities approved. So this could be considered as propaganda efforts rather what netizens were genuinely interested in.
— Wenhao (@ThisIsWenhao) April 13, 2022
We've seen this kind of efforts throughout the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where China would direct criticism at the West and whitewash Russia. But the interesting thing is that, this time, their efforts backfired, big time.
— Wenhao (@ThisIsWenhao) April 13, 2022
The Chinese government tried to divert netizens' attention by criticising the West. But this time it backfired horribly.
Weibo users continued to criticise the government but under the US hashtag. They smartly expressed their views under other hashtags that the Chinese government promoted to distract the users.
All forms of narratives, mainly satire, were used to highlight the government’s failures under the US hashtag.
SOME OF THE BEST ONES:
Issues like animal cruelty, wastage of medical resources, women being chained up in villages and much more were highlighted in the posts.
They replaced China with the US in their posts and pretended to be shocked at the kinds of things that happen in the US.
Many also criticised the Chinese media for always talking about what’s happening in the west instead of focusing on their own people.
Weibo users used keywords like “call me by your name” to refer to the Chinese government’s strategy of covering their faults by criticising the US.
GOVT WOKE UP LATE
The posts remained on the social media platform for hours. As mentioned by some users, exactly at 4:19 am in China, the government woke up and deleted everything. Only posts by verified government accounts remained.
People were still criticising the government under the “Shanghai handled rumours regarding Covid” tag.