Documentary on migrants censored, report on police brutality removed, and intensified censorship in 2024.
This statement was originally published in Freedom House’s China Media Bulletin, January 2024.
- Migrant worker documentary censored: In January, the video sharing platform BiliBili removed a documentary spotlighting the lives of migrant workers. The documentary, “Laboring Like This for 30 Years,” featured workers gathering at an intersection as early as 4am, hoping in vain to secure work for the day. Cameras caught them vying for the opportunity to earn a small paycheck as work opportunities dwindle due to the rising number of stalled construction projects. Hashtags referencing the video yield no results on Weibo; censors also removed online reports by the Shanghai-based news outlet Yicai on the same subject.
- Police brutality report removed: Eight police officers in Xinjiang were found guilty of extracting confessions with torture resulting in a suspect’s death in custody, according to a report by the news cite Caixin. The report, with an in-depth account of the brutality afflicted on the deceased suspect, was briefly accessible before being scrubbed from the Chinese internet.
- Censorship expected to intensify in 2024: Censorship may intensify further in the coming year, as the Ministry of Public Security has declared 2024 a year of “special operations” against online rumors. Additionally, the newly enacted Patriotic Education Law mandates that internet service providers escalate the production and circulation of patriotic content.
- Government-linked institution claims it can decipher Apple’s encrypted Airdrop service: The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice published an article on January 8 detailing a technological advancement for decoding the transmission of data through Apple’s encrypted Airdrop service, which allows wireless sharing between devices. The development allows the government to trace items deemed “malicious content” back to the original sender, and has been used to successfully identify multiple such suspects. In November 2022, Apple restricted the Airdrop function in China amid rising protests against the zero-covid policy; some users speculated that the move was meant to curb the spread of antigovernment memes that were being shared through the service.
- Authors excluded from literary awards, triggering censorship concerns: After the Hugo Awards for science fiction and fantasy writing published its full nomination statistics for the 2023 prize, it emerged that certain authors had been marked as “not eligible” for nomination despite receiving enough nominations to be on the final ballot. Excluded authors never received an explanation. Some suspected it was due to their past critical comments of the Chinese government, and connected the exclusion to the fact that voting was held this year at the World Science Fiction Convention in Chengdu, China.
