Weibo Account of Xuan Zi, Party to the Zhu Jun Case, Banned; Full Tightening of Feminism and Rights Defense Topics in China Reappears

On May 26, the Weibo account "Xuan Zi and Her Friends" of Chinese feminist activist Xuan Zi was banned. The account page showed that the reason for the ban was "complaints of violating laws, regulations, and the relevant agreements of the 'Weibo Community Convention'." As of now, Weibo has not publicly explained the specific violating content.

Xuan Zi is one of the most representative parties in China's "MeToo" movement. In 2018, she publicly accused the famous CCTV host Zhu Jun of sexually harassing her in 2014. This incident once became a rare large-scale public gender issue in Chinese society and triggered extensive discussions about workplace power, media privilege, and the plight of women's rights defense.

Subsequently, the case underwent years of litigation and public opinion tug-of-war. In 2022, a Beijing court finally ruled that Xuan Zi had insufficient evidence and dismissed her claims. Although the case did not receive judicial support, Xuan Zi has long been regarded as one of the important symbolic figures of the feminist movement in China.

In recent years, the Chinese government has continued to intensify pressure on feminism, labor, LGBT, independent media, and public rights defense issues. A large number of related accounts, non-profit organizations, and discussion spaces have been closed or marginalized. Many parties who once spoke out on public events have gradually encountered account bans, muting, unemployment, summons for talks, or even long-term surveillance.

It is widely believed externally that the so-called "violation of community convention" expression used by Chinese internet platforms has long become a highly ambiguous political censorship language. Especially when involving public events, criticism of the system, women's rights defense, and social movements, platforms often handle them on the grounds of "laws and regulations," "harmful information," or "inciting antagonism," but rarely explain the standards publicly and transparently.

It is worth noting that the Xuan Zi case itself is not only a sexual harassment controversy, but has long been seen as a microcosm of the power structure problems in Chinese society. The case involves the CCTV system, media authority, judicial environment, and online public opinion control, and therefore has always been highly sensitive.

Many observers believe that the core logic of Chinese-style platform governance is not simply to delete "illegal content," but to compress as much as possible all topics that could potentially form public organizational capacity, social consensus, and sustained discussion. Whether it is feminism, labor, or local rights defense, as long as it possesses real mobilization potential, it may be regarded as an "unstable factor."

In a sense, the Chinese internet is now increasingly resembling a large-scale digital stability maintenance system: entertainment content can overflow infinitely, but topics that truly involve real power relations can disappear at any time "based on relevant laws and regulations." As for which law or regulation was actually violated, often no one knows, and no one dares to ask.