Selective Censorship on Rightists and Leftists? An Observation and Analysis of Censored Social Media Posts in China

This study examines whether social media censorship in China is selective for online social groups of different ideologies, namely rightists and leftists, what content generated by these groups is censored, and what censorship methods are employed on the two groups. To answer these underexplored que...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Problems of post-communism 2023-05, Vol.70 (3), p.266-276
Main Authors: Jiang, Yue, Kuang, Xianwen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Censorship
Mass media
Social groups
Social media
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Summary:This study examines whether social media censorship in China is selective for online social groups of different ideologies, namely rightists and leftists, what content generated by these groups is censored, and what censorship methods are employed on the two groups. To answer these underexplored questions, we observed censorship practices on Sina Weibo for a full month and collected and analyzed the censored social media posts of both rightists and leftists. Our analysis confirmed the existence of selective censorship on posts by the two groups.
ISSN:1075-8216
1557-783X
DOI:10.1080/10758216.2021.1969249