Online Censorship In China

In a blatant attempt to suppress independent documentation of digital repression in China, Tencent has launched legal action to take down GreatFire’s FreeWeChat.com, using trademark infringement claims to mask what is clearly a politically motivated act of censorship.

 

On June 12, 2025, Tencent’s legal representative—cybersecurity firm Group-IB—submitted a takedown complaint to our hosting provider, accusing FreeWeChat of trademark and copyright infringement, cybersquatting, and unfair competition. GreatFire responded in detail, refuting each allegation on both factual and legal grounds. Despite this, the provider complied and removed our service, a troubling indication of how even flimsy legal threats can silence public-interest platforms.

 

FreeWeChat.com is one of GreatFire’s core anti-censorship initiatives. Since 2016, the project has preserved both censored and uncensored public posts from China’s dominant social platform WeChat, providing a rare window into conversations otherwise erased from public view. With over 175,000 unique visitors in the past three months, the site serves researchers, journalists, and Chinese citizens seeking transparency about the topics WeChat's owner, Tencent, suppresses.

 

Now, Tencent, through Group-IB, has demanded the takedown of FreeWeChat, falsely claiming the project infringes on its trademark. They cite the use of the word “WeChat” in our domain, even though FreeWeChat does not use WeChat's logo, claim affiliation, or distribute any modified WeChat software. The claim is thin, but the intent is clear: shut down a watchdog.

 

Recent headlines spotlight the Trump administration’s aggressive trade policies, particularly tariffs. These visible trade barriers are openly debated, transparent, and highly publicized. Yet, tariffs extend beyond physical borders.

 

Apple and Google enforce their own hidden trade restrictions, quietly controlling digital trade and imposing invisible barriers that block American digital products from reaching global markets. These hidden tariffs effectively undercut U.S. businesses, harming innovation and market opportunities abroad.

 

Big Tech’s Hidden Tariffs on App Developers

 

On December 31, 2020, Apple removed over 46,000 apps from its China App Store in a single day without providing any explanation to the media. Reports speculated that the removals were due to the Chinese government's enforcement of game licensing requirements, highlighting examples such as NBA 2K20 and Assassin’s Creed Identity. However, the same reports indicated that games accounted for only about 39,000 of the total removed apps, leaving a notable discrepancy of approximately 7,000 apps unexplained—a fact Apple did not publicly address. Such a sweeping removal wave directly impacted hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller American developers by abruptly cutting off their access to this critical global market.

 

GreatFire与“六四記憶‧人權博物館”联合宣布，正式启动全新“即时观众”（Instant Audience）项目——一个可扩展的工具，旨在将未被审查的内容传送至高度封锁的信息环境中。

 

“即时观众”项目将在本月展开，以纪念天安门大屠杀36周年，重点推广虚拟博物馆（https://8964museum.com）中的历史资源。

 

借助创新的镜像网站和先进的AI优化页面，该行动成功绕过中国严厉的互联网审查制度，确保数十万用户能够接触到通常被政府删除的重要历史信息和叙述。

 

“在天安门大屠杀36周年之际，‘即时观众’项目旨在揭示1989年天安门抗议的真相，直接挑战官方对历史事实的抹除。”GreatFire联合创始人兼项目负责人查理·史密斯（Charlie Smith）表示。

 

此次行动重点推广“六四記憶‧人權博物館”的内容。该虚拟博物馆是一个独特的线上平台，保存了1989年及其后关键的记忆与见证。博物馆由知名记者与作家长平（Chang Ping）策展，记录了中国争取民主与人权的历程，确保反抗的叙述得以延续与传播。

 

长平表示：“守护记忆、重建有关1989年民主运动的论述至关重要。像‘即时观众’这样的合作项目，帮助我们突破审查壁垒，确保我们的历史记忆得以延续。”他补充道：“能够直接向中国大陆的用户展示这些内容，尤其是那些从未听说过此事的年轻一代，是非常有意义的事情。”

 

2020年，随着《港区国安法》的快速实施，六四烛光悼念集会首次被禁止。对此，“香港市民支援爱国民主运动联合会”（HKASM）发起众筹，希望在法律压力下建立一个永久性的数字空间，以保存历史记忆，这也促成了该线上博物馆的诞生。

 

GreatFire此次采用一种不同寻常且创新的方式，不依赖广告宣传就将内容带入中国数字空间，进一步拓展了其反审查工具箱。这一策略并不依赖用户主动寻找内容，而是主动将内容“推送”给他们，在不触发审查机制的情况下将历史信息深入传播到中国网络之中。

 

长平评论道：“我认为这个项目最有意思的一点是，它的目标并不是帮助用户翻墙去寻找被审查的信息，而是让这些内容本身穿墙进入中国。”

 

史密斯进一步指出：“‘即时观众’项目就像是数字时代的‘撒传单’行动——将真相广泛而匿名地传播开来。虽然我们无法确切知道谁在阅读这些内容，但由此产生的涟漪效应可能会显著改变认知，激发更深入的思考。”

 

“即时观众”将在接下来的一个月中密集运作。行动结束后，GreatFire将酌情分享有关其覆盖范围和用户参与度的初步数据与洞察。这种基于数据的透明性将有助于评估项目效果并指导后续行动。

 

“我们的目标远不止天安门屠杀相关内容。”史密斯补充道，“我们希望借助这一渠道，将国际媒体、被审查的中国社交媒体内容和其他对公众利益至关重要的信息直接带到用户面前。这种方式与我们的FreeWeibo和FreeWeChat项目形成互补，我们也在探索将‘即时观众’部署到其他面临强大审查制度的地区。”

 

尽管“六四記憶‧人權博物館”的核心使命是保存和传播1989年民主运动的记忆，GreatFire则持续致力于技术创新与策略突破，以应对中国及其他地区的在线审查。他们在“即时观众”项目上的合作展现了记忆保存与反审查创新如何交汇，携手将重要的历史内容传播得更广、更深远。

 

媒体联系：

GreatFire, in partnership with the "六四記憶‧人權博物館" (June 4th Memory and Human Rights Museum), today announced the activation of its new "Instant Audience" project, a scalable tool designed to deliver uncensored content into heavily censored environments.

 

“Instant Audience” is being deployed this month to mark the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen protests and massacre by amplifying access to historical resources from the virtual museum (https://8964museum.com).

 

Leveraging innovative mirror websites and cutting-edge AI-optimized pages, the campaign bypasses China’s stringent internet restrictions, ensuring hundreds of thousands gain access to crucial historical information and narratives typically erased by government censorship.

 

“On the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, 'Instant Audience' aims to illuminate the events surrounding the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, directly challenging the official erasure of historical truths," said Charlie Smith, co-founder of GreatFire and project director.

 

 

The initiative prominently features content from the virtual "June 4th Memory and Human Rights Museum," a unique online museum preserving critical memories and testimonies from 1989 and beyond. Curated by renowned Chinese journalist and writer Chang Ping (長平), the museum documents China's struggle for democracy and human rights, ensuring that narratives of resistance remain alive and accessible.

 

In 2022, China's strict zero-Covid policy created an unprecedented situation where digital censorship intersected with real-world crisis management. With 586 million Weibo users - nearly half of China's population - the platform became both a vital communication tool and a battlefield for information control. FreeWeibo's documentation of 111,906 deleted posts in 2022 represents only the tip of the censorship iceberg.

 

 

"The Voices of April" (四月之声) emerged as perhaps the most powerful symbol of digital resistance during Shanghai's lockdown. This viral video compilation captured the raw human experience of the crisis - from emergency calls to complaints about food shortages. When authorities attempted to scrub it from the internet, citizens responded with remarkable creativity, embedding the video in QR codes hidden within movie posters, demonstrating how technological savvy could circumvent traditional censorship methods.

 

Source: FreeWeibo https://freeweibo.com/weibo/4756664018016915

 

The censored posts from Shanghai reveal a devastating pattern of secondary effects from the lockdown:

 

How Real-Name Registration policies create an “ideological firewall” that chills dissent by eliminating user anonymity and selectively restricting transnational access to Chinese social media apps.

Since 2021, the authorities in Turkmenistan have taken exceptional measures to crack down on the use of circumvention tools. Citizens have been forced to swear on the Koran that they will not use a VPN. Circumvention tool websites have been systematically blocked. Arbitrary searches of mobile devices have also taken place and have even targeted school children and teachers.

The government has also blocked servers hosting VPNs which led to “near complete” internet shutdowns on several occasions in 2022. Current reports indicate that 66 hosting providers, 19 social networks and messaging platforms, and 10 leading content delivery networks (CDNs), are blocked in the country. The government presumably is unconcerned about the negative economic impact that such shutdowns can cause.

This article is in large part inspired by a recent article from Meduza (in Russian).

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Russian users have had problems accessing government websites and online banking clients. Browsers began to mark these sites as unsafe and drop the connection. The reason is the revocation of digital security certificates by foreign certificate authorities (either as a direct consequence of sanctions or as an independent, good will move); without them, browsers do not trust sites and “protect” their users from them.

However, these actions, caused - or at least triggered by - a desire to punish Russia for their gruesome actions in Ukraine, will have long-lasting consequences for Russian netizens.

Digital certificates are needed to confirm that the site the user wants to visit is not fraudulent. The certificates contain encryption keys to establish a secure connection between the site and the user. It is very easy to understand whether a page on the Internet is protected by a certificate. One need just look at the address bar of the browser. If the address begins with the https:// prefix, and there is a lock symbol next to the address, the page is protected. By clicking on this lock, you can see the status of the connection, the name of the Certification Authority (CA) that issued the certificate, and its validity period.

There are several dozen commercial and non-commercial organizations in the world that have digital root certificates, but 3/4 of all certificates are issued by only five of the largest companies. Four of them are registered in the USA and one is registered in Belgium.