Has China been silencing information regarding the coronavirus ? Have you tried to silence data or opinions about Covid-19? Until now it was only mere speculation. However, a study shows that censorship has been applied to the most important social platforms in the country.
The Citizen Lab research group, based in Toronto (Canada) has discovered how WeChat , the Chinese WhatsApp that is owned by the technology giant Tencent, has blocked combinations of keywords that allude to the coronavirus and the Chinese Administration.
In addition, this Canadian firm reveals that the censorship began at the beginning of the year, weeks before officials began to admit the seriousness of the outbreak . It should be remembered that it was not until January 20 that Xi Jinping addressed the issue publicly and recognized that it was necessary to contain the threat “in a decisive manner.”
In a study it is relevant that during January 1 and 31, WeChat censored 132 combinations of keywords related to the virus. This figure only increased in the following weeks. Between February 1 and 15, 385 new term relationships were blocked.
The keywords in question referred to Chinese leaders, such as President Xi Jinping, but also to government policies on managing the epidemic and responses to the outbreak in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao.
The keywords affected included things like “unknown Wuhan pneumonia” or “SARS outbreak in Wuhan .” Among the censored combinations can be found: local authorities + epidemic + central government + cover-up or Wuhan + virus + human-to-human transmission. These are just a couple of examples of the dozens of expressions built by various affected keywords.
Mentions of the deceased Chinese doctor, also censored
Mentions of Dr. Li Wenliang , a 34-year-old doctor who died of the coronavirus and was one of a group of Wuhan doctors who tried to issue the first warnings about the virus at the end of December, would also have been silenced. The doctor concentrated 19 combinations of censored keywords.
WeChat is one of the most used mobile applications in China. In addition to being used as an instant messaging tool, its uses go much further and Chinese citizens use it to make payments, reserve taxis, order food at home and many other things (even request a divorce).
WeChat was not the only platform the ‘scissors’ would have gotten into. Something similar happened in YY , a video streaming tool that could be defined as ‘Chinese YouTube’. YY added 45 keywords to its blacklist related to the virus. The funny thing is that he included them on December 31, practically when WeChat, many days before the president alerted of the problem and a day before Wenliang tried to warn the public about an unknown virus at that time.
At the moment it is unknown if the decision to block combinations of words came directly from WeChat and YY or the services were ordered to do so by the Government of the Asian country. However, it is very suspicious both the date of the beginning of the censorship and the inclusion of terms that refer to the management of the crisis. The report suggests that it could be a “censorship taken to the extreme of the companies to avoid official reprimands.”
