SINGAPORE—On China’s heavily censored social media, a new target has emerged for internet police: blank sheets of white paper.
Platforms are rushing to remove images of people holding up the empty pages after protesters made them a symbol to express their frustration at China’s zero-Covid policies.
Over the weekend, amid one of the largest nationwide demonstrations that China has seen in decades, demonstrators used few or no words at all to protest Beijing’s strict pandemic policies, which show little sign of ending even as most of the rest of the world moves on. Across multiple major cities and university campuses, many protesters held up blank pages, causing some online observers to coin it the “white paper revolution.” A Chinese stationery company issued a denial after rumors spread that it would suspend the sale of such paper.
Online, users of the ubiquitous social-media platform WeChat and Twitter-like Weibo posted digital white rectangles with the words “I love you, China. I love you, young people”—a symbol of solidarity and defiance that nodded to the shrinking public space for disagreement with authority.
It was one of a number of creative ways people used to register their feelings in the country, where dissent isn’t tolerated and widespread displays of disobedience are rare. Even as the censors raced to pull down videos of the countrywide protests off several social-media platforms, the speed and frequency of the protests occurring over the weekend made it difficult for censors to handle the volume of content uploaded online, according to social-media researchers and Chinese internet users.
Students at Tsinghua University in Beijing are using blank pages to protest in defiance of a new school policy.
Photo:
OBTAINED BY REUTERS/via REUTERS
Weibo Corp.
and
Tencent Holdings Ltd.
, which owns WeChat, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Over the past decades, Chinese authorities have put in place a system of
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