At a time when China 'acts' to preach the world over freedom of speech and fundamental rights, especially to India, the bizarre social media censorship guidelines have exposed the double standards of the Xi Jinping-led government. Although the Chinese government always remains on high alert for maintaining secrecy over its law and order, its social media censorship guidelines have been leaked.
As per vice.com, China's leaked censorship guidelines have revealed that the Communist Party has banned over 100 nicknames from its social media including 'Adolf Xitler, Winnie The Poo and CoronaXi'.
China's Instagram-like social media Xiaohongshu's content moderator scanned and studied memes, satirical videos, and negative comments on Chinese President Xi Jinping and identified 564 nicknames and sensitive terms related to Xi within a two-month period in 2020 and preemptively censored them from the platform. Furthermore, the China censorship leaked guidelines revealed in the 143 pages documents that the social media app is not only keeping an eye on the content being posted by the common people but also monitoring news to develop strategies to stop potentially sensitive topics from spreading on their site and gaining global attention.
The following step by the Chinese government show how the Xi Jinping-led government cannot undertake criticism and work pro-actively to suppress its own people's voice. The report further suggests that the leaked China Censorship guidelines include two weeks worth of “public sentiment diaries” from May 2020, where content moderators flagged news that could potentially gain traction and manually identified keywords to ban, so the app’s censorship apparatus could screen related content more effectively.
Xi Jinping and Winnie the Pooh
Those wondering about Winnie the Pooh and its connection with China's President Xi Jinping can read further. People of Chine and around the world on social media frequently share the jolly bear as a meme for President Xi Jinping. However, the Chinese administration finds it derogatory to President Xi Jinping and therefore it censors the memes shared on social media. Winnie the Pooh is a common derogatory nickname for Xi. As per reports, the meme originated after pictures of President Xi Jinping alongside former US president Barack Obama drawing comparisons with Winnie's friend Tigger, were published.