Is Peng Shuai China’s Most Comprehensive Case of Censorship to Date?

On November 2nd, Peng Shuai revealed a secret she carried with her for a long time while enjoying success on the tennis court. Zhang Gaoli, once upon a time Communist Party member and former Vice Prime Minister of China, forced her to have sex, after which the two began an intermittent affair.

Peng Shuai described this in a long text that she posted on the social media site Weibo – but it didn’t stay there for long. It was deleted within a few hours. What followed is online censorship that has never existed in this form before. That’s what Eric Liu told the magazine “Vice”. He knows what he’s talking about, because he used to work at Weibo as a censor before switching sides in 2013 and now tracking Chinese censorship from the USA.

Given how shocking the story of Peng Shuai is, how many people are talking about it on social media, and the Communist Party’s increasing urge to control public opinion, Liu calls the government’s censorship campaign “unprecedented.” The aim is to make the case a taboo topic and thus to ensure that at some point people no longer dare to speak or write about it – neither online nor offline.

Since Peng’s Weibo revelation went online, the government has been working around the clock to erase all traces of their posts from the Internet, the media and thus the history of the country. By putting social media companies under pressure through penalties, China is causing their users to self-censure. While the case of Peng Shuai hits the headlines daily, any mention within China is nipped in the bud.

Even in private WeChat groups it is already avoided to mention the Causa Peng, otherwise the account could be blocked. Keywords like “Peng Shuai” and “Zhang Gaoli” were immediately blocked by search engines – as were code words that social media users are constantly thinking about.

Though Liu “Vice” said that China would have a hard time with this manual form of censorship if the plan seems to work. Although Peng is occasionally mentioned on social media, any real discussion around the topic is nipped in the bud.

How far the cover-up by the Chinese government really goes is shown by the fact that it has not been finally clear for some time where the tennis player is. A few days ago, a video interview between Peng and IOC President Thomas Bach made the rounds, which is said to have taken place on November 21.

the “China Digital Times”, For whom Eric Liu also works, sees this as a deception and part of China’s campaign.