'small groups of Western protesters, usually nude'

This looks promising: an ongoing detailed analysis of character blocking on Weibo, word by word. Doesn't bother with the wonder of the internet stuff, just goes straight to mapping the CPC's neural pathways. Also, I like the fact that it starts with 'foot fetishes'.

Comments

[ajay]

Most intriguing are the words in the '?' category - as in, the blogger can't work out why they're blocked. Ur, veteran, Icheon (?Incheon?), ID card, plug-in, PETN, chess opening, hairless, three colour cat, step down, subtropical, Tone River, ID card forgery, moaning language, Four Gentlemen, Deauville, Bloomberg, speaking down, forget-me-not.

"Veteran" may be something to do with the Sino-Viet war mentioned on these pages; PETN and ID card forgery are pretty obvious; but Deauville? Forget-me-not? Three colour cat?

Chinese puns?

[skidmarx]

Three colour cat?
One that isn't just black and white, as in the proverb about mouse catching attributed to Deng?
chess opening
You can't decline a Sicilian.
Ur
That's how it all starts.

BTW a comment of mine about the similarity to MS. Found in a Chinese Fortune Cookie has failed to appear on the "A go-round with the guo bao" post.

[Charlie W]

Deauville: the Asian film festival they hold there? (Only just gleaned this from Wikipedia, never heard about it previously.)

[john b]

Ur is banned because the Chinese government hates lolcats.

[ajay]

I NO CARE WHAT COLOUR I AM

LONG AS I CATCHEZ MICES

[Richard J]

KILL KENNY CATZ IZ TEH FIGHTINGEST CATZ.

(Great Wikipedia pages of our time #21

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cats_in_popular_culture )

[dsquared]

"Forget Me Not is the title of a HK pop album which is banned in the mainland. Come on lads I'm sure we can get these, it's like crossword puzzles.

... although, would they really be banning the whole phrase five years later? I'm not sure.

[Richard J]

Is it possibly oversensitive paranoia about references to June 89?

[ajay]

Banned for being suicidogenic, just like "Gloomy Sunday"...

The Four Gentlemen appear to be plants: orchid, bamboo, plum blossom and chrysanthemum. Popular subjects for Chinese paintings. No idea why they'd be banned from Weibo though. Maybe people have been spamming it with offers to sell scroll paintings?

Three-colour cats could be Maneki Neko, which are Japanese but popular in China. Maybe this is another spam marketing thing.

"Moaning language"??

[dsquared]

I am getting <"http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20110607000090&cid=1604&MainCatID=16">Four Gentlemen of Beijing as a banned protest group, and two of them were recently let out of jail which would make it topical.

[Jason Q. Ng]

Hi, I run Blocked on Weibo and this is awesome! Thanks so much for your suggestions, and I think quite a few are dead on (I posted an article about the Deauville Asian film festival yesterday http://blockedonweibo.tumblr.com/post/19195760772/deauville-duoweier-is-a-famed-seaside) and updated the Four Gentlemen article as well. I'll certainly need help as I go forward and tag the other 1,300 or so words on my list and when I do, I hope I can call on your help to decipher some of the other sensitive words that befuddle me. Thanks again.

[jamie]

Cheers Jason: thanks for the kind words. I'll keep an eye on the site and offer the odd phrase for discussion here.

Generally, I think a lot of the more puzzling comments might be once relevant keywords that never got taken off the list.

[ajay]

FYI, Jason, PETN is an explosive, popular with terrorists. I've looked it up and there is an Icheon in Korea as well, but no idea why it should be banned. There are Tone Rivers in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Somerset.

[ejh]

Now blogged here.

[jamie]

Nice one. The chess metaphor has been used in formally unrelated ways to illustrate the idea of PSC intrigue over Bo's deposition, which may explain it's current banning.