China’s censorship of the Hong Kong protests on social media
By S.R., P.K. and J.S.
China’s censorship of the Hong Kong protests on social media
THE principle of “one country, two systems” that defines how Beijing handles Hong Kong is meeting its match, as pro-democracy protesters flood the streets of the island territory demanding more say in their political affairs. Yet in mainland China, where citizens may not exercise free speech, people can barely even discuss the protests online. Censors have been poring over Weibo, China’s closely controlled version of Twitter, to scrub out references to the demonstrations. The chart above shows the number of deleted posts every day since April. On September 28th, the most tumultuous day of the protests, when police fired tear-gas to push back the student-led crowds, deletions hit a record: 15 of every 1,000 posts. All mentions of “Hong Kong police” and any posts with a #HongKong hashtag brought out the censors. The data were compiled by
, a censorship-monitoring programme at the University of Hong Kong. Its freedom to pursue such research and publish its findings is one more testament to the rights that the Hong Kong protesters are determined to defend.
