China's Internet censors try to shut out Beijing protesters

The Chinese government is trying every possible way to censor any discussion of a rare public protest which condemned President Xi Jinping as a "despotic traitor" and denounced the COVID policy.

As China's ruling Communist Party's twice-a-decade National Congress has already started, Xi doesn't want to deviate from his goal, The New York Times reported.

On Thursday, a column appeared over the Sitong Bridge overpass in the Haidian district of Beijing, openly bashing China's President and criticizing their Zero-Covid policy, including one calling for "freedom and not lockdowns."

People on social media quickly shared the videos and photos of the protest. But as soon as the Chinese government saw the post, quickly removed them but in this digital cat-and-mouse game, some tech-smart users indirectly coded the messages before the censors could catch on.

Chinese censors have restricted searches about the episode on Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, blocking certain hashtags, including "Beijing," "Sitong Bridge" and "Haidian." Other seemingly related terms that appeared to be blocked from searches on the social media platform were "courage," "Beijing banner" and "warrior," reported The New York Times.

China is already on high alert as the party congress, which occurs every five years had already started on Sunday. At the meeting, Xi is expected to coast to a third term as leader.

Eight marked police cars were parked under and around the bridge on Friday, and crowds of plainclothes officers in black sweatpants stood to watch on the street corners.

When reporters began taking photos of the bridge, four plainclothes officers immediately ran over and ordered them to delete the photos. They said taking photos there was prohibited because of "special circumstances."

The censoring also extended beyond search terms on social media with a connection to the incident, according to The New York Times.

Some WeChat users said their accounts were frozen after they shared images of the bridge or sent text messages about the episode. This prompted some people to flood the customer service community page of Tencent, WeChat's parent company, on Weibo, begging that their accounts be returned. One desperate user wrote about feeling "deeply ashamed" and expressed regret about comments written about the incident in a message group with four people.

The Tencent customer service community page on Weibo has been removed.

In addition, a song called "Sitong Bridge," a soft-rock tune by the band Graceless was removed from Chinese music apps. It also appeared to be removed from Apple Music for Chinese users, reported The New York Times.

In the comments section in some Chinese music apps of another song, "Warrior of the Darkness" by Eason Chan, a Hong Kong singer, some people posted remarks paying tribute to the protester. Those comments were removed.