Technology

Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17343934

Archived version

TLDR:

The Twitter account @whyyoutouzhele has allegedly been shadow banned by X (formerly Twitter) in relation to the 2nd anniversary of the White Paper protests, the rights organization Article 19 says.

The account is run by a Chinese artist living in Europe. It has played a key role in disseminating information about protests and other sensitive topics in China which are subjected to strict censorship by the state.

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Few online actors are more influential in skirting China’s censorship efforts than Li Ying (李颖) who established the @whyyoutouzhele, ‘Teacher Li Is Not Your Teacher’, account in April 2022. Having lived in Italy since 2015, he used to post actively on the Chinese platform Weibo. Because he lived beyond the Great Firewall, people in China would reach out asking him to post sensitive content on their behalf. His Weibo account was shut down at least 52 times for crossing the line into social issues, until he was finally purged from the platform altogether.

In April 2022 he switched to X and by November 2022 was gaining hundreds of thousands of followers a week, as he became a clearinghouse for sensitive content, especially for information about the White Paper Protests. As the account became a respected source for disseminating and accessing sensitive information beyond the reach of China’s censors, Li Ying faced increasing digital transnational repression.

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On Wednesday, 27 November, the blue tick verified ‘Teacher Li is not Your Teacher’ (李老师不是你老师) X (formally Twitter) account posted to its 1.8 million followers that it believes it had been shadow banned on the platform. The post speculated that the ban was in relation to the two-year anniversary of the White Paper Movement, a protest wave that rocked through numerous cities in China in November 2022 and saw numerous anniversary protests around the world over the past weekend.

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On 28 November, [the rights organization] ARTICLE 19 ran its own search on X, using the account’s username @whyyoutouzhele and its Chinese account name 李老师不是你老师. The search did not surface the authentic Teacher Li account in either case, however both searches revealed multiple impersonator accounts, with around 20 when searching for the username. The search for the Chinese account name returned over 900 impersonator account results, but not the authentic account.

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Shadow banning occurs when a social media platform intentionally limits the reach of certain content to its users, although platforms often deny shadow banning takes place. In its post, the Teacher Li account shared a screenshot from the platform claiming it had been subjected to a ‘search suggestion ban’.