Skip to main content

Irony Lost

UN’s video explaining democracy on Chinese platforms sparks censorship when user’s comment about freedom disappears.
|

The United Nations released a video last week called “The Meaning of Democracy” (民主的意義) on YouTube and on Chinese platforms Bilibili and Weibo that described democracy as the “fairest, most inclusive and most adaptive form of governance.” The video prompted lively chatter on Bilibili, also known as “Bzhan,” with one user wryly remarking that “the meaning of democracy is that you can express different opinions about this video without it being deleted.” The comment quickly vanished from the platform’s comment section — the disappearance itself documented and shared.



More Stories from this Region

An investigation report by one of Taiwan’s leading independent media outlets documents the human rights risks posed by app services created in China.
A recent study of posts from China’s security apparatus shows that in recent years the defined scope of perceived risk for foreign infiltration have expanded — including…
As military and diplomatic tensions rise across the Taiwan Strait, China is combining hard power moves with a soft approach — leveraging the cross-strait popularity of t…
One of China’s leading professional news outlets published a report this month on the corruption story behind a young official’s drowning in rural Hunan. Deleted within…
A former star of Chinese state television turns her camera on a Taiwanese journalist wounded in the Tiananmen crackdown — and on the limits of what witnesses could say a…
When China’s flagship official newspaper introduces a dating app and starts hosting singles mixers for troops and government workers, you know the demographic issue has…