{"id":16339,"date":"2018-03-01T15:34:53","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T12:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ww-vb.mine.nu\/w108\/chinas-stifling-of-presidential-term-limit-debate-amounts-to-most-significant-censorship-in-months-watchdog-says\/"},"modified":"2018-03-01T15:35:00","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T12:35:00","slug":"chinas-stifling-of-presidential-term-limit-debate-amounts-to-most-significant-censorship-in-months-watchdog-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/chinas-stifling-of-presidential-term-limit-debate-amounts-to-most-significant-censorship-in-months-watchdog-says\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s stifling of presidential term limit debate amounts to most significant censorship in months, watchdog says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Censorship on one of China\u2019s biggest social networking sites reached its highest level since November on Sunday, as the Communist Party proposed removing presidential term limits, according to the University of Hong Kong\u2019s Weiboscope project.<\/p>\n

After the official Xinhua news agency announced a list of proposed constitutional amendments, the watchdog tool recorded a spike in censorship with 24.9 messages deleted out of every 10,000 posts on monitored accounts. Weiboscope monitors over 120,000 Sina Weibo accounts for censored content.<\/p>\n

Fu King-wa, the head of the project, told HKFP that the ratio of deleted posts on the microblogging platform spiked on Sunday afternoon, after the news broke. The level almost reached the 27.7 post average during the forced Beijing migrant worker evictions<\/a> and the kindergarten child abuse scandal<\/a> last November.<\/p>\n

\"weiboscope<\/p>\n

Photo: Weiboscope.<\/p>\n

The ratio of censored posts had dropped again by the next day as many of the monitored accounts \u2013 many of whom were usually quite outspoken \u2013 were temporarily suspended by Weibo. Users were also blocked from posting a range of sensitive keywords, according to Fu.<\/p>\n

Fu said that different internet platforms appeared to be each using their own methods to censor posts related to the constitutional change, rather than following top-down orders to block the same set of keywords.<\/p>\n

According<\/a> to China Digital Times, a string of keywords were blocked from being posted on Weibo as of Tuesday, including \u201cthe wheel of history,\u201d \u201cascend the throne\u201d and \u201cYuan Shikai,\u201d who became the first president of the newly-formed Republic of China in 1912 and is known for attempting to declare himself emperor.<\/p>\n

The letter \u201cN\u201d was also censored briefly on Weibo, according to CDT.<\/p>\n

But according to Weiboscope, a post about Yuan Shikai was posted shortly before 8am on Wednesday, but was deleted about an hour later after it was re-shared by Chow Po-chung, a Hong Kong philosophy professor who is followed almost 200,000 Weibo users.<\/p>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/p>\n

The content was a \u201ctoday in history\u201d post on how Yuan Shikai declared himself emperor on December 11, 1915: \u201cThe results of that day\u2019s ballot count showed that, out of all 1993 of the provincial people\u2019s representatives, there were exactly 1993 that supported the constitutional monarchy, without one vote against\u2026 several months later, Yuan Shikai was forced to announce the abolishment of the monarchy,\u201d the post said.<\/p>\n

Fu said though it was merely a history post, \u201ceveryone can see that posting it at this time is a metaphor about current events, so perhaps the monitors saw this, interpreted that it was referring to something else and took action.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears as though a lot of human inspection was used to conduct this censorship, including [censoring] so-called KOL [Key Opinion Leaders] who are followed by many.\u201d<\/p>\n

Non-profit organisation GreatFire.org, which monitors blocked websites and keywords in China, said it saw an increase in users to its app, which lets people circumvent censorship.<\/p>\n

\n

We have seen a marked increase in our user base this past weekend, particularly for the news page (https:\/\/t.co\/fDCH9cNj6k<\/a>) on our FreeBrowser app. Presumably Chinese trying to find uncensored news about the term limits. https:\/\/t.co\/tt80i1RVfB<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 GreatFire.org (@GreatFireChina) February 26, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The proposed changes to the constitution will be submitted to the annual full session of the National People\u2019s Congress \u2013 China\u2019s rubber-stamp legislature \u2013 in March.<\/p>\n

President Xi Jinping is expected to be handed a second term in office during the session and, if the proposed changes are made, he could stay on as leader indefinitely.<\/p>\n

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