At the beginning of the month, President Xi Jinping found himself one step closer to becoming a lifelong dictator in China when parliament approved the removal of the two-term limit on the presidency. And Jinping responded by tightening his already iron grasp on the country, ordering the banning of any online posts that referred to George Orwell’s dystopian novel Animal Farm and the letter ‘N.’ (While banning the letter “N” might seem ridiculous, it’s been speculated that the letter is being used as a sign of dissent.)
But these aren’t the first outlaws. Government censors have also ensured the following search terms are blocked on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter (which is also blocked in the country):1
- the phrase ‘Xi Zedong’ (a combination of President Xi and former chairman Mao Zedong’s names)
- disagree
- personality cult
- lifelong
- immortality
- emigrate
- and shameless
China also banned the use of a number of social media platforms years ago. Facebook, Yahoo!, Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit, YouTube, Google, and Instagram, are inaccessible as well as some news websites. They are in absolute control of what the people within the “Great Firewall of China” are able to see. Don’t expect that to change. Especially now that Jinping will be ruling until his death. “China has a stringent policy of internet censorship because authorities view foreign websites and social media as a threat to national security.”2
(Did you guys hear that in the last 24 hours Mark Zuckerberg reportedly said he wants government oversight of Facebook? Hmmmm…sounds like the story in the video above!)
