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NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Friday, June 6, 2014

China Scrubs Tiananmen Square From Internet


A wider view of the famous "tank man" photo.  The Communists sent
in tanks to murder people daring to protest for freedom.

Communists Scrub The Internet Clean
China Expunges Tiananmen From Social
Media, Closes Chat Groups


China on Thursday extended a massive censorship operation to target popular social media sites, banning keyword searches linked to the 1989 Tiananmen Square military crackdown 25 years ago and a mass vigil in Hong Kong's Victoria Park, netizens said reports Radio Free Asia.

Keywords like "June 4, 1989" and "6.4" are often blocked to China's 620 million Internet users, who often find ever more ingenious ways to elude censorship, however.

Netizens have used terms such as "Something Something Square" and "May 35th" to get around the blocks and filters, although "May 35th" began to be blocked for the first time last month.


The ruling Chinese Communist Party's powerful but secretive central propaganda ministry issued censorship instructions to the country's tightly controlled media recently, ordering editors to avoid any reference to June 4, or 1989.

"All websites are asked to strengthen on-duty work during this time of highest sensitivity," the leaked directive, collated and translated by the China Digital Times website, said.

"Closely observe reporting discipline. Ensure that a responsible editor is always present," it said.

"Strictly delete information about overturning the official line and commemorating June 4 (including so-called sideways expressions)," the directive said.

It warned: "We stress once again the responsibility of websites to check content. Anyone found to be violating discipline during this inspection will be severely punished."


Hong Kong citizens attend a candlelight vigil in Victoria Park to commemorate
the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown on June 4, 2014.

Hong Kong Vigil
.
S
State-run media on Thursday was silent on a massive candlelight vigil attended by at least 100,000 people in Hong Kong on Wednesday to mark the crackdown.

And the list of blocked search terms had expanded on Thursday to include "Victoria Park", "candlelight," and "Teng Biao," the name of a leading Chinese human rights lawyer who delivered a swingeing attack on the Chinese government at the rally.

On the popular Twitter-like service Sina Weibo and similar social media sites, censors quickly located and deleted posts containing the banned terms.

And users of the popular chat service QQ said many of their groups were shut down in recent days.

"A lot of chat groups were shut down and disbanded," online activist Hua Manlou, who is currently on enforced "vacation" under police escort outside his hometown, told RFA.

"It was mostly the ones talking about people being 'disappeared,'" he said. "There were about six or seven groups shut down."

Read more Radio Free Asia

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