Tag: Censorship

LinkedIn Will Cut Over 700 Jobs Worldwide and Shut Its China App

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LinkedIn, the networking platform used by millions of employees and companies, said on Monday it will pare down its operations in China, capping a multiyear pullback that exemplified the challenges of running a foreign business in China. The company, owned by Microsoft, said it will lay off 716 employees worldwide, including teams dedicated to engineering and marketing in China, because of slumping demand. It did not say how many of those layoffs will be in China. LinkedIn will also shut its China job posting app, a bare-bones version of its…

Why China’s Censors Are Deleting Videos About Poverty

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A heartbreaking video of a retiree that showed what groceries she could buy with 100 yuan, or $14.50 — roughly her monthly pension and sole source of income — went viral on the Chinese internet. The video was deleted. A singer vented the widespread frustration among young, educated Chinese about their dire finances and gloomy job prospects, like gig work. “I wash my face every day, but my pocket is cleaner than my face,” he sings. “I went to college to help rejuvenate China, not to deliver meals.” His song…

Blocked, censored, jailed or laid off: why it’s never been harder to be a journalist

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Taisia Bekbulatova, Russia In December 2021, I was declared a “foreign agent” by Russia’s justice ministry. I now have to declare this status on every post, even on Instagram selfies. I refuse to comply. As a result, I could face criminal charges in Russia at any moment. After the Ukraine war began, I had to evacuate the editorial team of my news website, Holod, from Russia because even writing the word “war” became illegal, and sharing unapproved information risked up to 15 years in prison. It’s difficult for me to…

‘Publishing these books is a risk’: Taiwan’s booksellers stand up for democracy

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In a bookstore near one of Taipei’s leading universities, Zeng Da-fu and his wife work quietly into the evening. Zeng has run this store for decades, tucked in a laneway behind a wall of crumbling posters. They sell books on history and politics and Chinese translations of foreign texts, mainly to students but also once to Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, Zeng notes proudly. His work is crucial to the defence of Taiwan’s democracy, he says. This week that battle came close to home. Zeng, 75, is also a big investor…

China’s Search Engines Have More Than 66,000 Rules Controlling Content, Report Says

Chin@Strategy

China’s internet censorship is well known, but a report has quantified the extent of it, uncovering more than 66,000 rules controlling the content that is available to people using search engines. The most diligent censor, by at least one measure, is Microsoft’s search engine Bing, the only foreign search engine operating in the country, according to the report, which was released on Wednesday by the Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity research group at the University of Toronto. The findings suggested that China’s censorship apparatus had become not only more pervasive, but…

China Detains Taiwan-Based Publisher in National Security Investigation

Chin@Strategy

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A Taiwan-based publisher who disappeared while in China has been detained for suspected violations of security laws, Chinese authorities confirmed on Wednesday, fanning concerns in Taiwan that Beijing is sending a warning to the island’s vibrant publishing sector. The publisher, Li Yanhe, widely known by his pen name, Fu Cha, is a Chinese citizen who has been living in Taiwan since 2009. His company, Gusa Publishing, is well known in Taiwan for books that cast a critical eye on China’s ruling Communist Party. Mr. Li had returned…

China Says Chatbots Must Toe the Party Line

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Five months after ChatGPT set off an investment frenzy over artificial intelligence, Beijing is moving to rein in China’s chatbots, a show of the government’s resolve to keep tight regulatory control over technology that could define an era. The Cyberspace Administration of China unveiled draft rules this month for so-called generative artificial intelligence — the software systems, like the one behind ChatGPT, that can formulate text and pictures in response to a user’s questions and prompts. According to the regulations, companies must heed the Chinese Communist Party’s strict censorship rules,…

Chinese Censorship Is Quietly Rewriting the Covid-19 Story

Chin@Strategy

Early in 2020, on the same day that a frightening new illness officially got the name Covid-19, a team of scientists from the United States and China released critical data showing how quickly the virus was spreading, and who was dying. The study was cited in health warnings around the world and appeared to be a model of international collaboration in a moment of crisis. Within days, though, the researchers quietly withdrew the paper, which was replaced online by a message telling scientists not to cite it. A few observers…

Screenings of Winnie the Pooh horror film cancelled in Hong Kong

Chin@Strategy

The screening of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, a British slasher film due to be released in Hong Kong this week, has been cancelled for technical reasons, movie websites said. Moviematic, which had organised a screening of the film for Tuesday evening, reported the cancellation on its social media pages. Several other websites and media also reported the cancellation of screenings. The movie’s distributor in Hong Kong, VII Pillars Entertainment, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A ticket-booking link on its Facebook page brought up a message…

China’s ‘rotten girls’ are escaping into erotic fiction about gay men

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“The hand around his waist held him tighter, their bodies pressed closer together, and Xie Lian’s struggling hands were firmly folded and crushed against his own chest; unable to move. His lips were still securely sealed, the kiss deepening, and a stream of gentle, chilled air slowly passed through.” A god kisses a ghost king, and a love story, movie deal and KFC sponsorship are born. The kiss appears in the book Heaven Official’s Blessing, a danmei or “boys love” story. Danmei is romantic fiction about men or male beings…