BEIJING—China’s coronavirus outbreak has tested the limits of free speech on the country’s heavily censored online and social media, with a brief window of liberalization that opened during January subsequently slammed shut by authorities.
While censorship in China has tightened under Chinese leader Xi Jinping, questions of transparency around the current outbreak are especially sensitive after Beijing’s cover-up of the extent of the 2003 SARS epidemic fueled suspicion and mistrust, and led to official calls for openness this time around.
