Early in the coronavirus outbreak, Chinese authorities clamped down on information to make the virus look less severe, and the government more capable, thousands of secret government directives and other documents reviewed by @nytimes and @propublica show. nyti.ms/3nAwQaq
The documents, including more than 3,200 directives and 1,800 memos and other files from the country’s internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, lay bare the systems that helped authorities shape online opinion. nyti.ms/3arJeFO 
The curbs started in early January, before the novel coronavirus had even been identified definitively. When news spread that Li Wenliang a doctor who had warned about the new viral outbreak, had died of Covid-19, the censors doubled down. nyti.ms/3arJeFO
They ordered news sites not to issue push alerts about his death, and told social platforms to gradually remove his name from trending topics pages and activated legions of fake online commenters to flood social sites with distracting chatter. nyti.ms/3arJeFO
“Pay particular attention to posts with pictures of candles, people wearing masks, an entirely black image or other efforts to escalate or hype the incident,” read one directive. Online memorials began to disappear. nyti.ms/3arJeFO
Read our full investigation on how Chinese officials stage-managed what appeared online in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak: nyti.ms/3arJeFO
《纽约时报》@nytimes 和@propublica 查阅的数千份政府机密指示显示，在新冠疫情暴发早期，中国当局严格控制网络信息，让使病毒看起来没有那么严重，同时让当局看起来更有能力。nyti.ms/2Kn5g1V
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