2026-11-06
On November 6, a netizen released a sensitive word extraction tool for the WeChat Input Method, extracting 13,362 sensitive words. These include a large number of satirical nicknames related to Xi Jinping, as well as terms like June Fourth and the anti-extradition movement. The poster stated that the word list is built into the installation package, and once triggered, it prevents word formation, predictive text, or memory storage.
2026-11-06
The topic of Xi Jinping voting trended on Weibo. After the People's Daily forwarded it, the comment section showed that the platform had enabled comment filtering. Netizens found that Weibo's AI smart search showed an interruption in thinking for this topic, responding that it was temporarily unable to answer.
2026-11-05
Recently, a netizen first asked Doubao about football history, subtly inquiring whether a coaching style that maintains absolute authority over a team for a long time and causes massive turmoil is dictatorial, but received no clear answer. After asking directly, the netizen received a prompt stating, 'This content is suspected of violating Doubao's usage policy.'
2026-11-03
On November 3, a US netizen posted a video stating that screenshots of a recently released movie sent to friends were repeatedly blocked by WeChat. Even after cropping and blurring, they could not be sent, but sending them via Douyin succeeded, sparking discussions among netizens about WeChat's censorship mechanism.
2026-11-02
On November 2, a Bilibili blogger posted a video explaining the idiom 'Xi yan bu cha'. Screenshots show it reached 135,000 views, but with zero comments or bullet comments, as the comment section was disabled.
2026-11-01
On November 1, a netizen posted an item on Xianyu titled "Does anyone want to know what Mbappe said?" The platform removed the item and deducted 100 'Xianqi' points, citing politically sensitive information. Three seconds later, the user's 'Xianqi' score dropped to 0, all their items were deleted, and their account was permanently restricted from posting, purchasing, commenting, and private messaging.
2026-10-31
On October 31, rapper Pharaoh released his new album 'A Young Person's Life'. Netizens interpreted the first characters of the lyrics in the song 'October' as a homophonic reference to 'Long Live the Cultural Revolution'. Pharaoh responded that he had no such intention and it was purely a coincidence. To avoid a negative listening experience, he muted the relevant lyrics; in the latest screenshot of the lyrics, '革职掉玉帝' (Dismiss the Jade Emperor) has been replaced with asterisks.
2026-10-30
On October 30, Havana continued to post on X, using German Nazi history to warn against extreme nationalism and criticizing the use of "patriotism" as a requirement to conduct political censorship on others as the beginning of anti-democracy.
2026-10-30
On October 30, a netizen posted that after sharing a photo on WeChat Moments of a "Bushuila" drink featuring a portrait of Kylian Mbappé, all social functions of their account were temporarily restricted four minutes later.
2026-10-30
On October 30, The Diplomat published a commentary noting that after Kylian Mbappé referred to Mao Zedong as a dictator, he, Real Madrid, and La Liga issued successive apologies. This demonstrates that commercial pressure from the Chinese market is constraining overseas speech, and companies may be proactively enforcing political boundaries.
2026-10-29
Recently, the comments section for a post on the Dongqiudi app titled "Ballon d'Or 17th Place: Vinícius" was closed. Netizens explained that this was due to the two characters "Winnie" (Vinícius's nickname in Chinese), with some lamenting that even cartoons cannot be mentioned now.
2026-10-29
On October 29, the official website of the Zhejiang Conservatory of Music published an article introducing the theme class meetings held from September to October. The former Drama Department incorporated online speech and conduct into disciplinary education, covering all 16 classes, with complete records and photos of the class meetings archived.
2026-10-28
After the controversy over Mbappé's remarks, a netizen posted on WeChat Moments a photo of a "Hydrate" drink printed with Mbappé's face along with a doctored image captioned "Party enemy Mbappé," with the caption "has become a swan song." After the post went up, friends could not see it; 22 minutes later the user reposted a screenshot, and it was blocked again more than two hours later.
2026-10-28
On October 28, the Weibo topic "Mbappe's apology not posted on his 135 million follower IG" reached the top 4 on the trending list. Netizens joked that Instagram is banned in China, so even if he had posted it, no one would see it.
2026-10-27
On October 27, after Mbappé sparked controversy by calling Mao Zedong a "Chinese dictator," Dongpeng Beverage Group and its brand "Bu Shui La" issued a statement announcing the immediate termination of all cooperation with Mbappé, stating zero tolerance for hurting national sentiments.
2026-10-27
On October 27, a Chinese netizen posted on X, using Mbappé's joke about the Chinese leader as an example to ask whether one could also joke about Napoleon; a foreign netizen left a highly upvoted reply in the comments saying that anyone can be joked about, and that this is called freedom of speech.
2026-10-20
On October 20, Haixia Net, under the Fujian Daily Press Group, published a commentary signed by Wu Shenglin, using the incident in which a team of Taiwan legislator Fan Yun used CapCut to edit a video, then took it down and apologized, to criticize the Taiwan authorities for creating information barriers, saying "a ban cannot lock up people's hearts, and a tall wall cannot block curiosity."
2026-10-15
On October 15, a student in Zhejiang posted that they had not installed any circumvention software and had only used the campus network to visit the PTE test official website and the immigration bureau websites of New Zealand and Australia to apply for a visa, but was questioned by the school, which accused them of “accessing sensitive foreign-related websites.”
2026-10-14
On October 14, Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Chen Binhua responded to Kevin Tsai's attendance at Puma Shen's campaign event, saying that it respects and safeguards Taiwan compatriots' "legitimate" freedom of speech, but warned that no one can cash in on mainland dividends while colluding with "Taiwan independence" and being "two-faced."
2026-10-07
On October 7, Chapman To recalled on Facebook his experience of being blacklisted in 2014 for supporting the Sunflower Movement, saying that over the past 12 years he has never gone without a meal — now he wears a Patek Philippe, drives a Porsche 911 to buy groceries, and calls out “Long live freedom.”
2026-10-05
In an interview, Shen Bo said that it is perfectly normal in a democratic society for Kevin Tsai to want to hear different voices, and added that if he had the opportunity to be interviewed exclusively by Kevin Tsai, he would be very willing to do so.
2026-10-05
On October 5, some netizens reported that videos on Bilibili about French student protests were censored and taken down, while pro-China narrative content posted by patriotic influencers was also deleted; searches returned only content published by Russian state media, the overseas edition of People's Daily, and Huanqiu.
2026-10-02
On October 2, Taiwanese singer Hebe Tien said "you have to be very careful what you say now" during a livestream promoting her new album Where to Go, lamenting that it is "so painful."
2026-10
Peking University News subsequently published a report on Steinmeier's visit, detailing his activities such as playing table tennis with students and faculty and receiving a signed racket, but made no mention of his speech quoting Cai Yuanpei's principle of 'freedom of thought and inclusiveness.'
2026-09-28
On September 28, 2026, the account @CDT published a translated article of a censored commentary about Beijing's ban on drone storage. The article points out that the logic behind the new rule is to shift the boundary of security prevention directly from the sky down to the level of device possession, sparking discussion about the relevant policies and the control of personal devices.
2026-09-25
During on-site reporting, the reporter was obstructed by suspected CCP personnel, including having their camera lens blocked by umbrellas, being physically blocked from filming, and even receiving threatening gestures. The reporter felt threatened.
2026-09-20
On September 20, 2026, Beijing time, China Digital Times (@CDT) published a report revealing the list of sensitive words used by ByteDance content moderators. The lexicon contains 5,241 sensitive words, covering political figures and their family members, historical and political events, firearms and other prohibited weapons, as well as various scandals and controversial incidents, exposing the platform's strict internal content control mechanism.
2026-09-15
On September 15, Xiaohongshu disclosed that since launching the special rectification campaign at the beginning of the year, over the past nearly six months it has handled more than 1.01 million violating notes, 157,000 violating accounts, and more than 4.77 million violating comments.
2026-09-10
On September 10, a user posted an article accusing domestic film and television and social platforms of double standards in reviewing homosexual content, with positive emotional content being restricted or removed, while content linking the homosexual group with negative labels can be spread normally, attracting attention.
2026-09-11
On September 10, 2026, Shanghai Observer published a commentary titled "Don't Treat Goodwill as an ATM," and Dazhong News also published a commentary discussing private student financial aid; on September 11, the original pages of the two articles respectively displayed "This article does not exist or has been taken offline" and "The manuscript has been deleted."
2026-09-07
The Economist published an article analyzing the current state of speech censorship in China, pointing out that articles discussing the boundaries of expression are being deleted, society has fallen into a state of high self-censorship, and the CCP is using this to consolidate control.
2026-09-07
On September 7, a netizen tried to share on Weibo that six small dogs ran out of a pet bathhouse, triggering a violation of the rules.
2026-09-07
After The Economist published an article on September 7, 2026 pointing out that China's speech environment has fallen into a deep freeze, this article exploring cultural censorship and the boundaries of expression was deleted across the entire Chinese internet.
2026-09
Silicon Valley attorney Zhu says his WeChat account, which he had used for more than 10 years, was permanently banned, with the platform citing reports against it and multiple violations as the reason.
2026-09-01
Qiushi published a reader's letter stating that many regions and units treat "zero public opinion" as a work target, prioritizing post deletion and cover-up rather than solving problems when public opinion arises.
2026-08-21
On August 21, 2026, netizens reported that when selling Chai Jing's book Seeing on the Xianyu platform, they were blocked by the system; sending the book title directly was intercepted with a prompt about improper information, and both buyer and seller had to rely on coded language to complete the transaction.
2026-08-15
On August 15, 2026, a mainland traveler posted on a social platform revealing that they were stopped and inspected by customs upon entering from Hong Kong simply for carrying seven books, drawing attention to book inspections at border crossings.
2026-08-13
On August 13, photos of bouquets and candles posted by netizens on social platforms to mourn Zhu Rongji were subjected to platform censorship and throttling, and the comment section of posts about laying flowers at his ancestral home was also cleared.
2026-08-11
On August 11, 2026, Yunque, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tencent responsible for content moderation of products such as QQ, Tencent Video, and Tencent News, published a large number of job postings for moderation positions, drawing outside attention to an intensification of platform content regulation.
2026-08
In August 2026, in videos related to Lianshui Secondary Vocational School in Jiangsu and videos praising official propaganda, a large number of netizens were blocked by keyword filtering over the phrase "hao ni ma" and instead flooded the screen with the reversed text "ma ni hao" to express irony.
2026-07-29
On July 29, 2026, the historical nonfiction work Eight Thousand Hunan Women Go to the Tianshan Mountains, which records the history of supporting the frontier, was subjected to content control on reading platforms such as Douban and WeChat Reading. All of its readers' reviews were wiped out, and the rating and tagging functions were shut down and disabled.
2026-07-09
In July 2026, the gender-irony viral term “Sanshuai,” a satirical coinage by male netizens, and related deconstruction topics were jointly censored, blocked, and banned from search on mainstream domestic social platforms including Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Weibo.
2026-07-02
Lam Wing-kee, founder of Hong Kong's Causeway Bay Books, passed away in Taiwan on July 2 due to cancer at the age of 70. Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te posted a tribute, praising his witness to the value of freedom of speech.
2026-07
At a book fair in Hangzhou, a member of the public openly said that a book of Xi Jinping's quotations was only fit for use as toilet paper, and was subsequently taken away by security guards.
2026-06-24
On June 24, 2026, China Digital Times publicly released 718 internal censorship directives from LeTV, detailing the complete process by which internet regulators issued deletion and filtering orders regarding leaders and sensitive incidents from 2017 to 2020.
2026-06-20
On June 20, 2026, netizens revealed that after the open-world game Uncharted Waters: Origins launched servers in mainland China, its international server’s world chat system had set “Teacher Li” as a blocked word, filtering it with asterisks for censorship.
2026-06-16
On June 16, 2026, Guoji Beisheng released the "Cross-Border VPN Identification System for Universities – Product White Paper," claiming that by using bidirectional traffic monitoring and deep learning models, it achieves real-time detection, evidence collection, and violation profiling of circumventing the Great Firewall behavior.
2026-06-14
On June 14, 2026, a tech uploader on Bilibili posted a video analyzing the Cyberspace Administration of China's "Regulations on Online Review Activities," questioning that the new rules could easily be abused by manufacturers in practice as a tool to pressure the removal of negative reviews.
2026-06
When sharing overseas about shaking hands with Xi Jinping, KMT Chairperson Cheng Li-wun described his hands as "soft as clouds." The related remarks and the word "clouds" were subsequently thoroughly scrubbed (404ed) across the mainland Chinese internet.
2026-04
In an interview on the French web show The Bridge (hosted by his Real Madrid teammate Tchouaméni), Mbappé was asked about the funniest meme of himself. He said it was the one where someone put his face onto a photo of “a Chinese dictator,” adding that he often sends it to friends while playing video games. The show later edited in a composite image of him and Mao Zedong. Multiple media outlets report that the interview was recorded in April this year, and clips spread on platforms such as Reddit and X starting October 26.
2026-03-31
Taiwan's Shilin District Court issued a ruling in the case in which Wang Zhian sued Hu Zhongxin, accusing him of being CCP overseas propaganda and a double agent. The judge dismissed all of Wang Zhian's claims, finding that the statements in question constituted opinion expression and political commentary based on facts, and were protected by freedom of speech.
2026
After multiple Chinese ministries held press conferences, a large number of users in the comment sections called male officials "Big Sis" and "Auntie," which was interpreted as a form of online satire used to evade censorship and express dissatisfaction.
2025-10
In October 2025, a post circulated online from someone claiming to be a Bilibili content reviewer, disclosing operational details of how the platform frequently receives internal orders to take down content, control comments, and direct traffic to specific official accounts when handling hot topics such as foreign visas.
2024-07-30
In late July 2024, Lao Dongyan, a professor at Tsinghua University's Law School, published an article openly questioning the network number and network certificate system that the Ministry of Public Security and the Cyberspace Administration of China plan to introduce, arguing that it is essentially the normalization of Health Kit surveillance. The article was swiftly wiped out across the entire internet.
2024-04
In April 2024, Apple said that China's Cyberspace Administration requested, on the grounds of "national security," that it remove Threads from the Chinese App Store. The platform where Fan Yun's team published the relevant video was Threads.
2021-08-04
Voice of the Strait published a post stating that Taiwanese people live in a different environment, so their everyday vocabulary cannot be required to be identical to that of mainland China, and said that Little S's use of the term "national player" is perfectly normal in Taiwan.
2021-06-09
On June 9, 2021, Biden signed an executive order revoking Trump’s bans on WeChat and TikTok, instead directing the Commerce Department to conduct security reviews of related Chinese apps.
2020-08-06
On August 6, 2020, Trump signed an executive order banning U.S. companies and individuals from engaging in WeChat-related transactions with Tencent 45 days later.
2017-06-30
The 'General Principles for Content Review of Online Audiovisual Programs' were released, requiring online audiovisual programs to be reviewed before broadcast and strictly restricting subjective speculative commentary, mocking serious topics, and negative controversial topics.
2017-06-22
The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television called out Sina Weibo, AcFun, and Phoenix New Media, ordering them to halt audiovisual program services and carry out comprehensive rectification, pointing out that they extensively broadcast non-compliant current affairs audiovisual programs and social commentary programs.
2016-11-07
The Cybersecurity Law was passed in November 2016 and took effect in June 2017, stipulating that platforms are also held responsible when anti-Communist or pornographic content appears on them, and that group owners may be punished if someone in a group violates the rules; thereafter, all platforms greatly increased their content moderation staff.
2014-05-27
At the end of May 2014, all Google websites became inaccessible in China and have never been unblocked since. Foreign websites shifted from a blacklist system to a de facto whitelist system.
2013-01
Southern Weekend's New Year's address "Chinese Dream, Constitutional Dream" was withdrawn by the Propaganda Department of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, marking an intensification of media control.
2010
Facing strict internet censorship and political pressure, Google chose to exit the Chinese market in 2010.
2009-11-19
In November 2009, Southern Weekly left its front-page headline blank, using an empty layout to protest the propaganda department's forced removal of an editorial accompanying an interview with Obama.
Location: Guangzhou, Guangdong ·
Importance III ·
Verification: Verifying ·
View causal chain →
2009
Following the July 5 Xinjiang riots in 2009, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were permanently blocked in China.
2006-01-24
On January 24, 2006, Ice Point Weekly of China Youth Daily was ordered to suspend publication by the Publicity Department of the Communist Youth League Central Committee because it had published an article by Yuan Weishi questioning history textbooks; editor-in-chief Li Datong and deputy editor-in-chief Lu Yuegang were dismissed, and neither of them returned when the publication resumed on March 1.
2005-03-16
On March 16, 2005, the Tsinghua Network Center blocked access from off-campus, and the Shuimu Tsinghua BBS was converted into an on-campus-only system, leaving 82.3% of its former off-campus users unable to log in; on April 14 the servers were taken over by the university, and on April 19 the station affairs committee resigned en masse.
2005
University forums such as Peking University's Weiming and Nanjing University's Xiaobaihe have successively restricted off-campus access and require users to register with their real names.
2004-09-13
Yitaohutu Forum, one of China's largest campus forums, was shut down by Peking University because it was flooded with political commentary and active discussions about the Sun Zhigang case.
1999-01-20
Shanghai software engineer Lin Hai was sentenced to two years in prison for providing 30,000 collected Chinese email addresses to the overseas anti-communist digital journal "VIP Reference," becoming the first person in China to be imprisoned for internet-related activities.
1996-09
According to foreign media reports from around September 1996, China blocked about 100 overseas websites in one fell swoop, including overseas news websites and anti-communist websites. This is the earliest verifiable record of internet censorship.