China has one of the strictest censorship laws in the world. However, there was a wave of protests on social media on Sunday night, and observers couldn’t keep up with the deletion. Trigger: An online short film criticizing the authorities for the shutdown and for hitting the nerve.
Black and white aerial shots: empty streets and squares. The video is titled “The Voice of April”. It starts quietly and is accompanied by snippets of sound. Government officials have been heard saying there will be no lockdown – that was in March. The false promises of the authorities are followed by the voices of the angry, desperate population.
Creative users keep uploading videos
Hospitals and quarantine centers overcrowded, angry people protesting who ran out of food: The 6-minute film ruthlessly chronicles the government’s failures in chronological order. But observers soon intervened. and delete the movie. Usual so far in China.
But: this time the users were not defeated. They kept uploading the movie to their Wechat accounts, and internet censors could barely keep up with its deletion. And Chinese users are creative: some of them upload the video upside down so as not to be detected so quickly. Others embed a video QR code in movie posters.
Most of them have been deleted this morning, and videos and posts can still be viewed on YouTube and Twitter – platforms that are not accessible to Chinese censors; However, the platforms that are all blocked in China. Because there is no room to criticize China’s policy on Covid, no matter how justified it may be. By the way, the censored video ends with a wish: “A speedy recovery, Shanghai!”
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