Sina Weibo, the heavily censored Chinese alternative to banned Twitter, appears to have banned a hashtag that quotes the Chinese national anthem to criticize coronavirus lockdowns. It also appears to have blocked searches for the lyrics to the anthem.
The banned hashtag is based on the first line of the anthem: “Stand up! Those who refuse to be slaves!” The line is rendered with several variations in English such as, “Arise, you who refuse to be slaves!”
Weibo users reportedly filled the hashtag with complaints about the brutal coronavirus lockdowns imposed on Shanghai and other cities:
Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d say: the first line of China’s national anthem is censored on Weibo.
Hashtag “起来不愿做奴隶的人们” (Stand up! Those who refuse to be slaves) has been banned after people used it to vent frustration about prolonged lockdowns. pic.twitter.com/OxVRXvtaqY
— Mengyu Dong (@dong_mengyu) April 17, 2022
Breitbart News independently verified that searches for the hashtag on Weibo are returning zero results, even though it accumulated a large number of posts from angry Chinese “netizens” (as their rulers are fond of calling them, when they say things the Chinese Communist Party approves of).
A Weibo search returning no results for Chinese national anthem lyrics. (Breitbart News/Screencap)
According to a report at Insider on Monday morning, Weibo is also censoring posts from users who noticed the lyrics to the national anthem have been blocked from search results.
A Weibo post that allegedly asked, “how do you sing the first line of the national anthem?” was erased after accumulating over 11,000 “likes” and sarcastic responses from users, including one who wondered if the Chinese government might want to change its name after censoring its own anthem. The angry posts allegedly referenced or tagged Shanghai frequently.
Continue reading: Breitbart.com
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