China's protests may be overwhelmed by the government's censorship system, and censorship measures using Twitter also appear

The Chinese government is severely dealing with the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19), and sometimes continues the `` zero corona policy '' that also locks down the city for a certain period of time. However, at the time of writing the article, people dissatisfied with the zero-corona policy were causing large-scale protests , and the general public posted a large number of videos of the protests every day, causing China's censorship system to be unable to handle it well. The New York Times, an overseas media outlet, reported that

Protests Stretch China's Censorship to Its Limits - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/30/business/china-protests-censorship-video.html

Twitter Becomes Stage for China Protests Despite Ban by Beijing - WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-becomes-stage-for-china-protests-despite-ban-by-beijing-11669829265

Chinese users play cat-and-mouse with censors amid protests | AP News
https://apnews.com/article/technology-health-hong-kong-shanghai-covid-5452012336b1f8bbbd8b4658e87be453

In November 2022, an apartment house fire occurred in Urumqi , Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, killing 10 people. Also, in Zhengzhou, at Foxconn's factory, which manufactures iPhones, employees were forced to work in a lockdown that was close to confinement, and bonus payments were delayed, resulting in a large-scale protest demonstration . .

Pointed out that the cause of the Foxconn employee riot in Zhengzhou, China was caused by the zero corona policy-GIGAZINE

Speaking of China, it is known for its strict Internet censorship, and in addition to being unable to access overseas SNS such as Facebook and Twitter, and video posting sites such as YouTube, videos that oppose the government are immediately deleted. put away. Of course, the videos of these protest demonstrations were also censored and deleted by the authorities, but even so, several videos of the protests were seen on WeChat for a while.

'I was constantly refreshing my screen, saving videos, and taking as many screenshots as I could before they were censored,' said Elliot Wang, a Beijing resident who gave an interview to the Associated Press under a pseudonym. A friend shared a video of the protests in Shanghai, and I shared it too, but it was quickly removed.'

As to why WeChat is flooded with anti-government videos, experts say that so many Chinese took to the streets to film protest videos and that the sheer volume of videos posted led to automated censorship systems I think it may have overwhelmed the moderators and the human moderators.

``When anger floods the streets of a city, it becomes much harder to censor,'' said Xiao Qiang, who studies internet freedom at the University of California, Berkeley. Even the same demo, with videos shot by hundreds of participants from different angles, makes it very difficult for algorithms to screen and censor.

In addition, Chinese Internet users are confusing the censorship system by using filters, recording screens of videos played on the app, and splicing multiple videos together. Furthermore, it seems that protesters are demonstrating their creativity, such as holding up a ``blank paper'' on which nothing is written to avoid censorship.

``Blank paper'' is used to avoid censorship in large-scale protests in China, and is Apple's restriction on AirDrop limited to China-GIGAZINE

Of course, although it will take time, the Chinese authorities can eventually delete the video, but videos of demonstrations and protests that occurred in China are originally posted on Twitter and other sites that cannot be accessed from within China. increase. An account called ``Li Sensei is not your teacher' ' with more than 700,000 followers is operated by a Chinese living outside of China, and was sent to DM from within China. I post screenshots, photos and videos.

Content posted on Twitter is not deleted by the Chinese authorities, so it remains on the internet by being posted by Master Li. As a result, even if a particular photo or video is deleted in China, if you access Twitter using a VPN, you can download the content again and repost it domestically.

It is said that the Chinese authorities are taking countermeasures such as freezing the account by reporting that the Twitter account that posts such protest content is in violation of the Twitter reporting system. ``This will definitely be a test for Elon Musk and Twitter on how to protect users from hacking by authoritarian regimes,'' said Jiawei Ban , a visiting researcher at Meiji University.

The Wall Street Journal contacted Twitter about an account that had been frozen after retweeting content related to the protests, but reported that the account was revived shortly after, although there was no response.

In addition, it has been reported that the Chinese authorities are manipulating information to make it difficult to find demonstration-related content by releasing a large number of pornographic advertisements that include Chinese city names in order to divert overseas attention from domestic protest demonstrations. I'm here.

China's pornographic ads exploded on Twitter, aiming to hide large-scale protest demonstrations from overseas eyes - GIGAZINE