On the morning of August 26, a glacial collapse caused catastrophic flooding and mudslides on the China-Nepal border, destroying a port and border crossing in Gyirong County in Shigatse, Tibet, and inundating...
A schlocky, ultra-low-budget Chinese animated film with the title “The Cow Comes” or “Here Comes the Cow” (牛来, Niú Lái) has become the surprise hit of the summer, with its clumsy (but not AI-generated) animation, goofy...
In the censored post translated below, blogger 竹不倒 Zhúbùdǎo ("Unyielding Bamboo")...
News that comedian Guo Degang is under investigation by the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Culture and...
This post from WeChat account 百里曾游 Bǎilǐ Céngyóu ("100 Li Once Traveled"), deleted at...
What kind of society would we have if no one spoke up?”
— From a censored article about migrant worker Jing Shuren, who was detained for two years and is now being tried for reposting online content to help draw attention to the widespread problem of unpaid wages
On the morning of August 26, a glacial collapse caused catastrophic flooding and mudslides on the China-Nepal border, destroying a port and border crossing in Gyirong County in Shigatse, Tibet, and inundating communities on both sides of the border. Nepalese authorities have confirmed 1,050 deaths, with nearly 4,000 people still missing. Chinese state media reported as of September 2 that 16 people were killed in Tibet, with over 546 still missing, approximately half of them foreign nationals. Search and rescue efforts are ongoing. In addition to highlighting the increasing risks of climate...
A schlocky, ultra-low-budget Chinese animated film with the title “The Cow Comes” or “Here Comes...
In the censored post translated below, blogger 竹不倒 Zhúbùdǎo ("Unyielding Bamboo")...
News that comedian Guo Degang is under investigation by the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Culture and...
This post from WeChat account 百里曾游 Bǎilǐ Céngyóu ("100 Li Once Traveled"), deleted at...
The announcement that two Chinese mathematicians have won the Fields Medal, awarded every four...
In yet another blow for book lovers and free thinkers in Hong Kong, national security police raided two independent bookstores (Have a Nice Stay and Greenfield, respectively) and arrested five individuals on suspicion of selling allegedly seditious publications, an offence punishable with up to seven years in prison under Hong Kong’s homegrown national security law (NSL). Three of those arrested have since been released on bail, while the status of the other two remains unclear. The raids and arrests took place on Wednesday, against the backdrop of Hong Kong’s annual international book...
RightsCon, the world’s largest digital human rights conference, was forced to cancel its 2026...
On Monday, the Hong Kong government gazetted amendments to the implementation rules of the...
On January 15, non-governmental organization Human Rights in China (HRIC) reported that, for the...
The involvement of Chinese nationals in Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine received...
We believe: Faith is not a crime. Worship is not a crime. Prayer is not a crime. [Chinese] This...
RightsCon, the world’s largest digital human rights conference, was forced to cancel its 2026 conference just days before it was to convene in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, reportedly due to Chinese pressure on the Zambian government. A leading summit on human rights and technology held annually since 2011 in various countries and organized by the advocacy group Access Now, RightsCon had anticipated about 2,600 attendees from more than 750 organizations, including NGOs, human rights organizations, and some of the world’s largest tech companies. Its sudden cancellation heightens concerns...
On Monday, the Hong Kong government gazetted amendments to the implementation rules of the...
During the recently concluded “Two Sessions” annual legislative meetings, the National People’s...
On January 15, non-governmental organization Human Rights in China (HRIC) reported that, for the...
As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese)...
In the run-up to the Global Women’s Summit slated for October in Beijing, which will mark the 30th...
On the morning of August 26, a glacial collapse caused catastrophic flooding and mudslides on the China-Nepal border, destroying a port and border crossing in Gyirong County in Shigatse, Tibet, and inundating communities on both sides of the border. Nepalese authorities have confirmed 1,050 deaths, with nearly 4,000 people still missing. Chinese state media reported as of September 2 that 16 people were killed in Tibet, with over 546 still missing, approximately half of them foreign nationals. Search and rescue efforts are ongoing. In addition to highlighting the increasing risks of climate...
A schlocky, ultra-low-budget Chinese animated film with the title “The Cow Comes” or “Here Comes...
News that comedian Guo Degang is under investigation by the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Culture and...
This post from WeChat account 百里曾游 Bǎilǐ Céngyóu ("100 Li Once Traveled"), deleted at...
The announcement that two Chinese mathematicians have won the Fields Medal, awarded every four...
Late last month, Caixin published an update on the case, prompting commentator and former...
On the morning of August 26, a glacial collapse caused catastrophic flooding and mudslides on the China-Nepal border, destroying a port and border crossing in Gyirong County in Shigatse, Tibet, and inundating communities on both sides of the border. Nepalese authorities have confirmed 1,050 deaths, with nearly 4,000 people still missing. Chinese state media reported as of September 2 that 16 people were killed in Tibet, with over 546 still missing, approximately half of them foreign nationals. Search and rescue efforts are ongoing. In addition to highlighting the increasing risks of climate...
In the censored post translated below, blogger 竹不倒 Zhúbùdǎo ("Unyielding Bamboo")...
News that comedian Guo Degang is under investigation by the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Culture and...
This post from WeChat account 百里曾游 Bǎilǐ Céngyóu ("100 Li Once Traveled"), deleted at...
The post translated below, from WeChat account “Summer Flavors,” argues that keyword-based...
Late last month, Caixin published an update on the case, prompting commentator and former...
In yet another blow for book lovers and free thinkers in Hong Kong, national security police raided two independent bookstores (Have a Nice Stay and Greenfield, respectively) and arrested five individuals on suspicion of selling allegedly seditious publications, an offence punishable with up to seven years in prison under Hong Kong’s homegrown national security law (NSL). Three of those arrested have since been released on bail, while the status of the other two remains unclear. The raids and arrests took place on Wednesday, against the backdrop of Hong Kong’s annual international book...
CDT recently published a large set of leaked internal instructions for online content management...
Apple announced long-anticipated AI upgrades to its Siri voice assistant this week at its annual...
Ahead of the 37th anniversary of the June Fourth crackdown, CDT Chinese editors compiled a number...
Chinese social media and financial news apps are abuzz over new policies restricting the use of...
At The Wall Street Journal last week, departing China correspondent Yoko Kubota described her...
In June, ChinaFile published a new report, "The Locknet: How China Controls Its Internet and Why It Matters"—the product of 18 months’ work by Jessica Batke, ChinaFile’s senior editor for investigations, and Laura Edelson, assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University. The report gives a concise but thorough overview of China’s online censorship system, including the motivations behind it and the mechanisms by which it is implemented. It expands on the familiar image of the "Great Firewall" as a perimeter barrier, adopting a broader...
In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central...
In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central...
In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central...
A recent WeChat post reveals that some Chinese schools and universities are using special software...
In the two weeks since the Ministry of Public Security and the Cyberspace Administration of China...
You Must Take Part in Revolution is a graphic novel by Badiucao, political cartoonist and former CDT contributor, and Melissa Chan, a journalist who in 2012 became the first reporter to be expelled from China in more than a decade. The book was conceived in the wake of the 2019 Hong Kong protests, and follows the divergent paths of three friends in Hong Kong and Taiwan from their involvement in the protests through to 2035. CDT: I’m sure anyone reading CDT is familiar with each of you separately. How did the two of you come to join forces? Melissa Chan: I’d interviewed Badiucao for a...
On September 12, 2003, John Battelle published the first post on chinadigitaltimes.net: Here’s...
In 2014, Leta Hong Fincher published her first book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender...
Starting in March 2008, Tibetans across the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), Qinghai, Gansu, and...
Surveys have shown that Xi Jinping’s hardline foreign policy is increasingly unpopular abroad....
Jeremy Wallace, associate professor of Government at Cornell University, joined CDT to discuss his...
CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content Archive.” Each month, we publish a summary of content blocked or deleted (often yielding the message “404: content not found”) from Chinese platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, Douyin (TikTok’s counterpart in the Chinese market), Xiaohongshu (RedNote), Bilibili, Zhihu, Douban, and others. Although this content archived by CDT Chinese editors represents only a small fraction of the online content that disappears each day from the Chinese internet, it provides valuable insight into which topics are...
In late May, China’s State Council announced new guidelines on providing basic services in the...
CDT recently published a large set of leaked internal instructions for online content management...
Online censorship, official secrecy, and public speculation kicked into high gear following last...
CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content...
Apple announced long-anticipated AI upgrades to its Siri voice assistant this week at its annual...
On the morning of August 26, a glacial collapse caused catastrophic flooding and mudslides on the China-Nepal border, destroying a port and border crossing in Gyirong County in Shigatse, Tibet, and inundating communities on both sides of the border. Nepalese authorities have confirmed 1,050 deaths, with nearly 4,000 people still missing. Chinese state media reported as of September 2 that 16 people were killed in Tibet, with over 546 still missing, approximately half of them foreign nationals. Search and rescue efforts are ongoing. In addition to highlighting the increasing risks of climate...
A schlocky, ultra-low-budget Chinese animated film with the title “The Cow Comes” or “Here Comes...
In the censored post translated below, blogger 竹不倒 Zhúbùdǎo ("Unyielding Bamboo")...
News that comedian Guo Degang is under investigation by the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Culture and...
This post from WeChat account 百里曾游 Bǎilǐ Céngyóu ("100 Li Once Traveled"), deleted at...
The announcement that two Chinese mathematicians have won the Fields Medal, awarded every four...
On the morning of August 26, a glacial collapse caused catastrophic flooding and mudslides on the China-Nepal border, destroying a port and border crossing in Gyirong County in Shigatse, Tibet, and inundating communities on both sides of the border. Nepalese authorities have confirmed 1,050 deaths, with nearly 4,000 people still missing. Chinese state media reported as of September 2 that 16 people were killed in Tibet, with over 546 still missing, approximately half of them foreign nationals. Search and rescue efforts are ongoing. In addition to highlighting the increasing risks of climate...
The announcement that two Chinese mathematicians have won the Fields Medal, awarded every four...
The post translated below, from WeChat account “Summer Flavors,” argues that keyword-based...
The rise of artificial intelligence and the widespread use of domestic and international large...
The notice below was issued by the Hunan Library, a provincial institution located in Changsha. It...
Disaster preparedness and disaster-relief efforts are hot topics on Chinese social media as the...
In the censored post translated below, blogger 竹不倒 Zhúbùdǎo ("Unyielding Bamboo") responds to reporting by investigative journalist Li Wei’ao on two recent cases of alleged sexual assault by officials. The post first notes other related censorship, and highlights the perennial issue of official statements dictating what is reported, how, and when, which even former Global Times editor Hu Xijin has bemoaned, among others. A statement was released in the more recent case a day later, announcing the dismissal and detentions of the two men involved—an official and an SOE...
News that comedian Guo Degang is under investigation by the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Culture and...
Late last month, Caixin published an update on the case, prompting commentator and former...
CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content...
In yet another blow for book lovers and free thinkers in Hong Kong, national security police...
In late May, China’s State Council announced new guidelines on providing basic services in the...
In late May, China’s State Council announced new guidelines on providing basic services in the place of people’s actual residence, rather than formal registration. Such a shift could substantially alleviate the hardships imposed by the current hukou household registration system, which has effectively kept many tens of millions of migrant workers apart from their parents and children for long periods. This is not the first time changes to the system have been promised. In 2023, one Chinese expert told Reuters that "Hukou reform is a hard bone to chew, […] it’s not something you...
Despite huge leaps in recent decades, rural living standards remain an issue of widespread popular...
Despite huge leaps in recent decades, rural living standards remain an issue of widespread popular...
Responses on Chinese social media to state broadcaster CCTV’s annual Spring Festival Gala...
At The New York Times on Monday, columnist Li Yuan describes how, as "wages stagnate and jobs...
In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central...
RightsCon, the world’s largest digital human rights conference, was forced to cancel its 2026 conference just days before it was to convene in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, reportedly due to Chinese pressure on the Zambian government. A leading summit on human rights and technology held annually since 2011 in various countries and organized by the advocacy group Access Now, RightsCon had anticipated about 2,600 attendees from more than 750 organizations, including NGOs, human rights organizations, and some of the world’s largest tech companies. Its sudden cancellation heightens concerns...
On Monday, the Hong Kong government gazetted amendments to the implementation rules of the...
During the recently concluded “Two Sessions” annual legislative meetings, the National People’s...
Recent weeks have seen extreme weather across central and southern China, particularly in Guangxi, where a dam breach led to at least 26 deaths. These events sparked widespread online discussion about accountability for human failings that exacerbated the damage; lionization of rescue efforts as a distraction from those failings; official euphemisms such as "a gap appeared" for the dam breach; the role of domestic media; and reflexive hostility to foreign reporting. Much of this has been censored; some of it has been archived and translated by CDT. In the midst of this, last week...
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China issued the findings of its 2025 Media Freedoms...
Back-to-back typhoons have brought torrential rain, flooding, and other extreme weather events to...
The post below, the latest in a series of translated accounts by Chinese users grappling with online censorship, bemoans automated comment moderation on WeChat public accounts. The author, on her account "May’s Thoughts on the World," explains to readers that disappearing comments are not her own doing, and bristles at the apparently endless scope of potential pitfalls and sensitivities: "I thought so-called rule violations were restricted to the platform’s few clear-cut categories: vulgarity, pornography, abuse and trolling, gambling and fraud, malicious...
Xi Jinping spoke in Beijing on July 1 at a ceremony to mark the 105th anniversary of the Party’s...
Chinese teachers have long complained about being overworked and frequently called upon to perform...
Last October, former Global Times editor Hu Xijin lamented—not for the first time—the narrowing of public discourse in China. He argued that mounting intolerance meant that "many people are growing far more cautious about speaking on social media or have stopped posting altogether. […] It’s a loss for the public information space in the internet age and it leaves public opinion incomplete." Hu carefully expressed his views in politically palatable terms, repeatedly stressing "the constitutional order led by the Communist Party of China." He framed speech restrictions as a...
CDT Chinese recently highlighted an exchange with ByteDance’s AI chatbot Doubao which...
Hostile foreign forces have long been accused of fomenting unrest and other ills in China. The...
In the censored post translated below, blogger 竹不倒 Zhúbùdǎo ("Unyielding Bamboo") responds to reporting by investigative journalist Li Wei’ao on two recent cases of alleged sexual assault by officials. The post first notes other related censorship, and highlights the perennial issue of official statements dictating what is reported, how, and when, which even former Global Times editor Hu Xijin has bemoaned, among others. A statement was released in the more recent case a day later, announcing the dismissal and detentions of the two men involved—an official and an SOE...
News that comedian Guo Degang is under investigation by the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Culture and...
Late last month, Caixin published an update on the case, prompting commentator and former...
A pair of recently surfaced screenshots appear to offer unusual detail about a special month-long operation, held in Beijing and involving over 40 Ministry of Public Security computer specialists from around the country, to combat “overseas cyber forces” in the battle for public opinion. The apparently leaked internal instructions from the Ministry of Public Security are likely to be the result of an email breach. They include the names and locations of many of the computer-specialist officers, as well as the name and contact information of the individual in charge of the operation. At some...
Over the past two weeks, the Biden administration has issued a series of regulations intended to...
Popular online writer Shen Maohua, who writes under the pen name Wei Zhou, is known for his...
A schlocky, ultra-low-budget Chinese animated film with the title “The Cow Comes” or “Here Comes the Cow” (牛来, Niú Lái) has become the surprise hit of the summer, with its clumsy (but not AI-generated) animation, goofy plot, and earnest attitude inspiring thousands of memes and creating a carnival-like atmosphere among bemused audiences—many of whom were willing to buy tickets just to see if the film was really as terrible as it was rumored to be. A five-year labor-of-love produced on a shoestring budget by mother/son team Sun Lifang and Xin Yumeng, “The Cow Comes” is a dreamlike...
News that comedian Guo Degang is under investigation by the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Culture and...
The rise of artificial intelligence and the widespread use of domestic and international large...
In late May, China’s State Council announced new guidelines on providing basic services in the place of people’s actual residence, rather than formal registration. Such a shift could substantially alleviate the hardships imposed by the current hukou household registration system, which has effectively kept many tens of millions of migrant workers apart from their parents and children for long periods. This is not the first time changes to the system have been promised. In 2023, one Chinese expert told Reuters that "Hukou reform is a hard bone to chew, […] it’s not something you...
Despite huge leaps in recent decades, rural living standards remain an issue of widespread popular...
Despite huge leaps in recent decades, rural living standards remain an issue of widespread popular...
On the morning of August 26, a glacial collapse caused catastrophic flooding and mudslides on the China-Nepal border, destroying a port and border crossing in Gyirong County in Shigatse, Tibet, and inundating communities on both sides of the border. Nepalese authorities have confirmed 1,050 deaths, with nearly 4,000 people still missing. Chinese state media reported as of September 2 that 16 people were killed in Tibet, with over 546 still missing, approximately half of them foreign nationals. Search and rescue efforts are ongoing. In addition to highlighting the increasing risks of climate...
The announcement that two Chinese mathematicians have won the Fields Medal, awarded every four...
The post translated below, from WeChat account “Summer Flavors,” argues that keyword-based...
On the morning of August 26, a glacial collapse caused catastrophic flooding and mudslides on the China-Nepal border, destroying a port and border crossing in Gyirong County in Shigatse, Tibet, and inundating communities on both sides of the border. Nepalese authorities have confirmed 1,050 deaths, with nearly 4,000 people still missing. Chinese state media reported as of September 2 that 16 people were killed in Tibet, with over 546 still missing, approximately half of them foreign nationals. Search and rescue efforts are ongoing. In addition to highlighting the increasing risks of climate...
Disaster preparedness and disaster-relief efforts are hot topics on Chinese social media as the...
CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content...
In yet another blow for book lovers and free thinkers in Hong Kong, national security police raided two independent bookstores (Have a Nice Stay and Greenfield, respectively) and arrested five individuals on suspicion of selling allegedly seditious publications, an offence punishable with up to seven years in prison under Hong Kong’s homegrown national security law (NSL). Three of those arrested have since been released on bail, while the status of the other two remains unclear. The raids and arrests took place on Wednesday, against the backdrop of Hong Kong’s annual international book...
CDT recently published a large set of leaked internal instructions for online content management...
Apple announced long-anticipated AI upgrades to its Siri voice assistant this week at its annual...
During the recent back-to-back Sino-American and Sino-Russian summits, there was a fair amount of online censorship of sensitive-word combinations, much of it “soft censorship” aimed at controlling online discourse by limiting search results to Chinese government websites and state-media outlets. This, and a lack of substantive breakthroughs during the Xi-Trump summit in particular, meant that much Chinese social-media commentary focused on amusing or meme-friendly details such as Elon Musk’s son’s wardrobe and Mandarin study, or the menu of the banquet served to the visiting American...
RightsCon, the world’s largest digital human rights conference, was forced to cancel its 2026...
After the carnage, there aren’t even enough people left to form a WeChat group. [Chinese]...
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
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