Chinese users are beating the censors to talk about Hong Kong

Chinese netizens can only discuss the Hong Kong protests on two Weibo posts, but they make it count

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Chinese users are beating the censors to talk about Hong Kong

Published: 9:25pm, 12 Jun 2019Updated: 9:06am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

On Sunday, Hong Kong experienced the largest protest rally in the city in more than a decade. Days later, a new round of protests broke out Tuesday and Wednesday. But in mainland China, few dare to talk about events in Hong Kong… except in the comments of two Weibo posts.

Sunday’s rally saw what organizers say was more than one million people marching through Hong Kong, protesting an extradition bill that people fear will allow the Chinese government to seize whoever they want from the city. The protest ended with clashes with the police.

On Wednesday, just before the legislative council was set to discuss the bill, clashes broke out again as protesters tried to barge into a government building. The police responded with tear gas.

Mainland news outlets have mostly remained silent about the protests… mostly. State-run media outlets are still allowed to put their patriotic spin on the unfolding events.

One loud official voice on Weibo is Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of Global Times. In two lengthy Weibo posts, Hu tried to explain that the extradition bill is “normal legislature behavior,” and that the protest was started by opposition groups “maliciously stirring things up with support from the West.”

Most discussion about the protest is either blocked by China’s Great Firewall or is deleted on domestic social media, with some accounts getting completely suspended.