China has turned online censorship into a domestic industry, employing two million apparatchiks to suppress dissent. Yet Shanghai’s dystopian Zero-Covid lockdown policy is testing the ‘Great Firewall’ to its limits. Wired has more.
If you search the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo for “Shanghai lockdown” (“上海封城”), you’ll find plenty of videos of deserted streets and emergency workers delivering food. There are fewer signs of the collective outrage, anger, and desperation that has gripped the city’s 26 million residents, who have been confined to their homes since April 5th and are struggling to get hold of food and medicine. You probably won’t find, for instance, a shocking video of pandemic workers clubbing a pet corgi to death after its owners were taken away to be quarantined, although there are references to the infamous incident, which became a symbol of the harsh lockdown conditions.
The situation became desperate as supplies of food ran short days after the lockdown was enforced, and some people were denied access to medical care. In response, residents are dodging China’s notorious online censorship system to document their experiences and vent their anger on sites that include Twitter-equivalent Weibo, the ubiquitous messaging app WeChat, and the Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin.
China has one of the world’s most advanced internet filtering and censorship apparatuses, known as the Great Firewall. Back in 2013, state media said around 2 million people were employed to track content posted online, and Yaqiu Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, says censorship has become stricter since then. But the Shanghai lockdown is demonstrating the cat-and-mouse dynamics that are central to social media censorship, even in a country that devotes huge resources to wiping the internet clean from dissent.
“No censorship apparatus is airtight,” says Guobin Yang, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies contemporary China. “Social media censorship in China still relies a lot on human labour. It’s entirely possible that not all censors were motivated to keep up with their job at full speed.”
One video that went viral on Chinese social media, despite censorship efforts to stop it, was entitled the “Voices of April” and was originally posted by a user calling themselves Strawberry Fields Forever. The video combines aerial shots of Shanghai with audio recordings claiming to be made by distressed residents. A man pleads for his sick father to be allowed to go into a hospital; children in quarantine centres cry after being separated from their parents; residents shout from their compounds for the Government to provide them with supplies.
“It went so viral that the censors had trouble censoring it,” says the cofounder of Great Fire, an organisation that tracks censored posts on Chinese social media platforms, who asked to use the pseudonym Charlie Smith. He suggests the video, which was taken down and uploaded several times by different users, could have been viewed millions of times. “The Chinese understand there’s a limit to free expression,” Smith says, especially when it comes to politics. But he believes the Shanghai lockdown goes beyond the usual political debate because so many people are personally affected. That means people are willing to push the limits of free expression they would normally accept, he adds.
Worth reading in full.
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GFY Hancock.
Yep, rusty poker time.
Rough end of a pineapple?
Big cactus?
Red hot for choice.
Think Edward Ii.
Not nice.
If these official figures are true, which is debatable, I would never have thought the day would come when the majority of the population have been so easily brainwashed into voluntarily accepting being injected with a poison. The manipulating power of the the few global elites on governments, the BBC and MSM puppets truly awesome. God help us all.
It’s less than half the population. The base number vaccinated with first dose, has moved at a much slower pace the last few weeks. The younger age groups aren’t rushing forward.
For the UK, I will add
Unfortunately, that is not the case. The overall vaccination rate has remained fairly constant, with 2nd doses taking up some of the capacity since the end of March.
People are still getting suckered in.
Yes but, as you point out, it’s the second doses which are boosting the Total trend. These are not ‘new’ vaccinees but people who have already received the first dose.
The number of vaccinated individuals has actually slowed quite considerably. It will be interesting to see if the number of second doses matches the first dose total as that might give an indication of how many were put off by the first jab.
‘Gene-based vaccines received emergency approval at lightning speed to combat a virus that is no more dangerous than influenza There is now clear evidence that people can become severely ill and die from these vaccinations. No real-world benefit of vaccination has ever been shown. Until reliable and convincing data are available, this high-risk human experiment must not be allowed to continue.’ Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi & Dr. Karina Reiss ‘Covid Unmasked.’
No real world benefit of lockdowns or masking has ever been shown either. But the lambs are still queuing for the abbatoir.
Aww, little lambs don’t have any choice in their demise. The people queuing to be injected do.
I feel immense sadness when I see all those queues – have they been brainwashed, indoctrinated with fear? Do they really believe and trust – without question – that a government would have their well-being at the heart of what they do?
The queues continue, day after day…
I also hear that many are not getting their second dose having been made
very unwell with the first. Can anyone confirm this?
Well at the last count I saw there were over 750,000 adverse reactions and more than 1,100 deaths so assume one or two of those would have put off someone. Also assume if they died after the first dose they won’t be attending the second.
Hopefully true regarding the youngsters. Spect smart phones will get them in the end tho!
I didn’t realise so many anti-vaxxers read this site. I am anti-lockdown and masks etc but the vaccine is our release from all this. The vaccine is the best thing to have happened. I have had 2xPfizer jabs and am happy that I have. If you really want to help then the best thing you can do is get vaccinated. It is very selfish not to do so.
This term ‘anti-vaxxer’ is so simplistic. Surely one can be for some vaccines and against others. I for one am more anti than pro but agree that there is merit in some. I think you will find many people are against this particular vaccine for many reasons – from my point of view the sheer desperation to get everyone in the U.K. vaccinated with it is enough to make me very concerned – without being ‘anti-vax’.
Jeepers how many times do I need to say this. Please please please go The the MHRA website and see for yourself these jabs are KILLING PEOPLE. 1,100+ at the last count with over 750,000 adverse reactions. Don’t think “The vaccine is the best thing to have happened” to the victims and the families of the 1,100+ who have died, do you?
People spreading misinformation like this are not being helpful at all. Just get vaccinated like the majority. The vaccines are doing a great job, don’t spoil it.
For pitys sake grow up.
You can tell what has done to your brain…
Maybe you won’t be thinking like this for long.
Mind boggling!!
“One of the biggest & most important national efforts in our history.” Handoncock}
When the words ‘Matt Hancock’ cross your horizon – think ‘Big Pharma rep. with a significance problem and a little dick’.
At least some of them will be sheep getting a double dose, that or illegal immigration is way worse than believed.
Vaccine macht frei
Well, vaccine macht money!
Ja genau, wie Arbeit in Auschwitz.
This doesn’t make sense, the vaccine dashboard on Gov.uk says 59,178,397 doses administered by 21st May
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations
OK I’ve realised my mistake. England, not the UK.
If it gets us opened up and you don’t have to take it, why worry ?
Because of all the deaths, all the wasted money and all the terrible problems that will accrue as a result of all these poisonous jabs.
Frankly I don’t give a shit . All I want is life going back to normal and the pubs open.
Pubs, are crap and you in your essential wisdom are welcome to the soulless ,gastro, themed shit holes, with over priced gnat piss masquerading as ‘ale ‘ nowadays.
I’ll happily let you have both of mine if it’s any help.
Because it’s based on a Big Lie
Not wise to base the direction of civilisation on lies
Folly and evil has been done and will continue until it is recognised as such
Don’t care what decisions what other people take -I just want the pub open normally.
‘life saving jabs’. Not the people being jabbed.
Until you live through something like this , you really cannot comprehend how it can happen, actually I still can’t.
We have been softened up for this ever since the cold war scare ended. We have meekly accepted surveillance cameras in the streets, Fixed Penalty Notices for speeding which set the precedent for the Covid FPNs, endless petty nanny state restrictions and new laws, more and more powers for the CPS and the police, the emasculation of the judiciary and of parliament, the insidious spread of political correctness and woke, and on, and on, and on.
THAT is how it was able to happen!
Here’s a back-of-the-envelope estimation of what the actual UK adverse event count might be:
Australia has a passive reporting system (like VAERS or Yellow Card) run by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, but it also (and this is how these things should be done!) has an active survey run by an organisation called AusVaxSafety of everybody who receives the vaccine, with reporting points at 3 days, 8 days and 6 weeks. http://web.archive.org/web/20210521122749/https://www.ausvaxsafety.org.au/safety-data/covid-19-vaccines
The findings from the survey to date are:
If we assume that the UK statistics would be similar, then with 37.5m people vaccinated for the whole of the UK we might expect 19m people with adverse reactions. Many of those 37.5m have only received their first shot, and the second shot tends to be worse for adverse events.
The Yellow Card system currently has reports from 235000 people, which suggests that 1.2% of actual adverse reactions in the UK are being reported on the Yellow Card system which is consistent with some of the estimates that have been given of the reporting rate.
Again if we assume the Australian and UK numbers are similar, around 450000 people in the UK will have had adverse reactions serious enough to see a doctor or an emergency department.
Those Australian adverse event numbers are yet another reminder of the poor therapeutic value of these vaccines. It’s far from obvious that on balance they are preventing more symptoms than they are creating.
And the NHS claimed not to be able to cope last winter….
Yes, there’s presumably potential for overwhelming the NHS if enough of those 450000 with significant adverse reactions show up in A&E
There are 54,000 GPs in the UK. So on average that’s just over 8 visits/doctor over the last 6 months. I don’t think it is going to break the NHS! (GPs see over a million people every working day).
The Ascent of Man
It’s certainly an achievement in terms of logistics. Shame the vaccine doesn’t prevent infection or transmission and causes lots of serious side effects, including more than 1100 deaths in the UK so far.
According to the Government there have been 4,460,000 cases of Covid since the start of the “Pandemic”; of these 127,716 have died; or 2.8% of those infected.
127,716 out of a population of about 70,000,000 or about 0.2%
0.2% out of 50, million is about 100,000 who MIGHT be at risk.
Hardly 50,000,000 life saving jabs.
They may sucker those 2nd jabbers into 3rd and 4th jabs.
It’s what they’ll do to the unvaxxed that worries me.
“why are we still discussing the possibility of lockdown being extended beyond June 21st?”
Because of the variants of course! And whatever else the control freaks can come up with to justify their manipulation of their victims.
The end goal has always been the digital ‘health’ passport
According to the government daily summary on Saturday 22 May there have been just short of 60 million jabs given out so this article is way out of date.
Rollout, milestone, doses, given, announced…You almost sound pleased about a needless, coercive whole populace mass vaccination programme soon to be extended to children.
The reality is that the British have, unwittingly no doubt, but with the encouragement of many who should have known better, effectively signed their own death warrant as a free people. Only some unexpected event like wholesale expose of WEF can now save us from Digital Compliance ID.