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'Why would he take such a risk?' My censor and me


The long read: Online dissent is a serious crime in China. So why did a Weibo censor help me publish posts critical of the Communist party?

Bored stiff, he logs on to a VPN service to circumvent the great firewall of China and uses Google Earth to wander streets in unfamiliar cities, fantasising about the people there and their lives. Although most of their posts are tactful and restrained, likening the government to a violent husband or a pissant blowing their own trumpet, few realise that they are witnessing the pinnacle of freedom of speech in communist China, the golden age for a generation. He delivers speeches at meetings claiming he will “thoroughly cleanse cyberspace” – that is, he will eliminate all voices detrimental to the party, which is the reason he issues the order to cancel all my social media accounts.

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