Active censoring of coronavirus information 'enabled' by China for months

By Dr. Liji Thomas, MDMar 5 2020

In keeping with China's often repressive policy towards news outlets and the dissemination of news and views that it doesn't want to be in the public domain, it is becoming apparent that Chinese social media WeChat and live-streaming app YY have long been editing what they display about the novel coronavirus illness.

Information on the coronavirus is managed on Chinese social media. Image Credit: remotevfx.com / Shutterstock

For years, China has been censoring online content available to its people. In the current instance, it seems that censorship was several weeks in advance of the official acknowledgment that the outbreak was one of unusual severity. Even as doctors tried to warn each other of a possible SARS-like outbreak in late December, social media censors were at work blocking neutral (not critical of authorities) information about the outbreak.

The World Health Organization (WHO) received the first intimation of a new coronavirus outbreak in China's Wuhan city on December 31, 2019. However, weeks passed before the authorities publicly spoke of the magnitude of the outbreak. Until then, the number of infections was reported to be less than it actually was, and the risks of the illness and of its spread were trivialized. The Chinese authorities, in effect, did not give the information about the outbreak to its own people or to the world at an early enough period to have saved many lives by timely action.

At present, there are over 98,000 cases globally, and 3,383 of them have died.

Online censorship

A study from a Toronto-based university research body, called Citizen Lab, shows that keywords related to the coronavirus fail to turn up records, because of censoring. The researchers discovered this when doctors tried to educate the public about the spreading danger, using social media platforms. The problem was that any word like 'Unknown Wuhan Pneumonia,' or 'Wuhan Seafood Market,' were censored out on YY. The censorship occurs on the client-side with YY and has been tracked since 2015– the device removes specific keywords, and the list is continuously updated as time passes.

The WeChat app, which is owned by the Chinese company Tencent, however, censors its servers using a list of keywords in various combinations. WeChat is a fundamental part of life in China, widely used for communication, flight and taxi bookings, money transfers and official statements, with over 1.15 billion active users.

Confirming the facts

How did the researchers establish the presence of censorship? Simply, Citizen Lab staff inserted scripted group chat exchanges, based on different headlines and article text. These scripted dialogues were sent to WeChat accounts in Canada and China.

The researchers found that if a message had a keyword like 'US Centers for Disease Control' and 'coronavirus,' it was highly unlikely to be sent to the Chinese account. Still, it would be displayed in the Canadian account. That confirmed that censorship was active.

The list of words that ensure the message will be edited is becoming more extensive. In January, there were 132 combinations of keywords, all related to COVID-19. That list reached 516 in February. Meanwhile, on YY, there were 45 censored keywords, 5 of which came off the list on February 10.

Among the censor-worthy keywords are references to human-to-human transmission, the Central government, unknown Wuhan virus, and Dr. Li Wenliang, the doctor who warned others about a massive outbreak in the making. Wenliang died of the illness, at just 33 years of age, leaving his young wife a widow carrying their second child, and his little daughter an orphan.

Fears and precautions

Why are messages being censored again? The explanation offered by Citizen Lab is, "Leaked directives and previous research show that Chinese social media companies receive greater government pressure around critical or sensitive events. While it is not known what specific directives on COVID-19 may have been sent down from the government to social media companies, our research suggests that companies received official guidance on how to handle it as early as December 2019 when the spread of the disease was first made public."

Chinese companies are penalized for inappropriate or illegal content on their platforms, and therefore exercise "self-discipline." Amnesty International researcher Patrick Poon observes, "It shows how obsessed and concerned the Chinese government is [in] trying to curb any discussion... that falls outside the official narrative. It's totally about social control and deprives citizens of their rights to freedom of information and expression."

Even more distantly related content has not escaped the censor. For instance, a popular game that simulates pandemics is now no longer available from China's iOS App Store. The reason given for its withdrawal is that "includes content that is illegal in China as determined by the Cyberspace Administration of China."