This 🧵 outlines *some* major developments re online censorship of LGBT content in China over the past few years to provide context for the shuttering of LGBT student groups’ social media accounts. First, this is yesterday's development: variety.com/2021/politics/…
2015: Queer film director Fan Popo’s documentary, Mama Rainbow, disappears from multiple video-sharing sites. Sites claim authorities ordered them to take it down. Fan sues the media regulator, who claims they never gave the order. Fan loses on this point: wsj.com/articles/BL-CJ…
June 2017: State-controlled China Netcasting Services Association (CSNA) issues guidelines banning depictions of “abnormal sexual relations” including “incest, homosexuality, sexual perversion…” bbc.com/news/blogs-tre….
Sept 2017: Popular gay discussion board on Tianya closes after 18 years online bc of “external factors that are outside our control.” supchina.com/2017/09/29/onl….
2018: Weibo announces cleanup campaign of “homosexual”, violent, & pornographic content. After massive backlash, Weibo reverses. State media WeChat post comments, “respect for & protection of different sexual orientations is a manifestation of a society's degree of civilization."
2019: CSNA releases guidelines for short video platforms, like Douyin, incl bans on “abnormal” sexual relations & “non-mainstream” views on marriage, but no express ban on “homosexuality.” politics.people.com.cn/n1/2019/0110/c…. Blued CEO Geng Le interprets this as correction to previous ban.
2019: Weibo starts deleting major discussion fora for lesbians. Another big backlash ensues. Weibo only partially reverses this time. chinadigitaltimes.net/2019/04/weibo-….
There are numerous other instances of accounts or posts getting throttled (eg, “Civil Code Same-Sex Marriage” reached 200 mil views before getting axed), but many remain. It's unclear whether authorities seek to shrink space or eliminate it but regardless the squeeze is hurting.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
