Reproduced from Bitter Winter: A magazine on religious liberty and human rights in China
To prevent people from knowing the truth about the pro-democracy protests, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controls online comments, restricts citizens’ and officials’ travels.Fired for Not Blocking a Pro-Hong Kong Comment
According to an employee at a company in the central province of Henan that monitors online content, one of his coworkers was fired in August for not blocking a comment posted by a netizen in support of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The government fined the company 5,000 yuan (about $700) for inadequate “supervision.”“The state controls everything you say and do. As long as your cellphone is connected to the internet, you will be monitored the moment you mention a sensitive word,” the employee told Bitter Winter. He added that for many years, any comments that mention June 4 (the Tiananmen massacre in 1989), Taiwan, Xinjiang, or Hong Kong independence, Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping, come under the scope of government’s control. As soon as a comment related to one of these topics is posted, it is immediately deleted.
