China’s ruling Communist Party took extensive steps in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak to control the narrative surrounding the virus and fight public opinion.
This comes amid reports by Pro-Publica and the New York Times, which detail documents leaked by a hacker group that calls itself “CCP Unmasked.”
These documents show thousands of directives and memos reportedly from the country’s internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, working to make the virus appear less threatening and authorities seem as if they were competently handling the situation
This included using specialized software, which allowed the government to track online trends, coordinate censorship activity and manage fake social media accounts. These directives date back as far as early January. This also included ordering news sites to use only government-published reports and not to compare the virus with the SARS outbreak of 2002.
At the beginning of February, Chinese President Xi Xinping himself called for tighter control of digital media with a directive stating regulators should work to “influence international opinion.”
Much of this came to a head on February 7, 2020 with the death of coronavirus whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang who had warned of a new viral outbreak before succumbing to the virus himself.
Authorities began an immediate crackdown by warning expressions of grief would be allowed, but anyone “sensationalizing” the story would be dealt with “severely.” Following Li’s death, online memorials vanished and police detained people working to archive deleted posts.
By late May, authorities were alerted to confidential opinion analysis reports being published online and ordered cyber administration offices to get rid of internal reports…
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