Tiananmen Square in an undated image. Image via Wikimedia Commons
The Chinese government has an unconventional way of commemorating a national tragedy to say the least. In what’s become an annual routine, Internet censors in the country are building on a list of banned keywords related to the June 4 Massacre. Obvious words like “Tainanmen,” “square” and “tank” are blocked, but more subtle searches are stymied as well. With Internet users becoming more savvy, censors have to be wary of a multitude of variations on common searches. For instance, alternate ways of searching for June 4 like “May 35” and “April 65” have both been blocked. The censors have even gone so far as to block the words “today” and “tomorrow,” taking away from Internet users what was taken away from protestors who perished at the hands of Chinese martial law 24 years ago.
[via the Globe and Mail]
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Josh Sherman is a Toronto Standard intern. You can follow him on Twitter at @joshuaxsherman.
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