README.adoc

* https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2141910/china-launches-website-report-foreign-spies-corrupt

[[pla]]
====== People's Liberation Army (PLA, 中国人民解放军)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国人民解放军

The Chinese army, and also one of the central intelligence agencies, notably on cyberattacks.

===== The West must ban the Chinese telecommunications software and hardware

They are an entry point to spying, censorship and <<fake-news>>. Notable companies that should be banned:

* <<huawei>>
* <<tiktok>>
* <<zoom>>
* <<alibaba>>

Reports:

* 2020-02 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-media/u-s-imposes-new-rules-on-state-owned-chinese-media-over-propaganda-concerns-idUSKBN20C2G1 U.S. imposes new rules on state-owned Chinese media over propaganda concerns, the companies are: Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network, China Radio International, China Daily Distribution Corp. and Hai Tian Development USA, Inc. See also: <<chinese-government-media>>.
** 2020-04-03 https://theintercept.com/2020/04/03/zooms-encryption-is-not-suited-for-secrets-and-has-surprising-links-to-china-researchers-discover/ 'Zoom's encryption is "not suited for secrets" and has surprising links to china, researchers discover"

===== What should Western media do about China?

When you report something about a person, for fuck's sake include the person's name in the title of the article, at the very least the pinyin.

Then, in the body, also add the corresponding Chinese characters on the first mention. This is how you do it: "San Xihou (三西猴)"

Yes, Chinese people also have names. And yes, pinyin has infinitely more homonyms than characters.

In the body of the article, notably in photos, include the exact location of the event if applicable.

City at the very least, but if recognizable, where withing the city.

Yes, China is big! There are many different places in China.

==== Western companies that comply with Chinese censorship requests

Western governments should prevent companies from complying to Chinese censorship requests, or at least impose fines and sanctions on them.

Citizens should boycott such companies and require them to be punished.

See also: <<western-companies-that-sell-censorship-technology-to-dictatorships>>

Some hell known companies and events:

* 2020 <<hololive>>
* 2020 Outfront Media, see: <<lebron-james-opposes-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests-2019>>
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC[HSBC]
** 2020-06 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#Support_for_China's_Security_Law_for_Hong_Kong_(2020)[Support for China's Security Law for Hong Kong (2020)]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomberg_L.P.[Bloomberg L.P.]
** 2020-02 https://theintercept.com/2020/02/18/mike-bloomberg-lp-nda-china/ "When Bloomberg News's Reporting on China Was Challenged, Bloomberg Tried to Ruin Me for Speaking Out"
* 2019-12 Shutterstock implements censorship for searches from China https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/08/in-wake-of-shutterstocks-chinese-censorship-american-companies-need-to-relearn-american-values/
* Apple
** https://applecensorship.com App Store monitoring by <<greatfire>>, source: https://github.com/greatfire/applecensorship
** 2020-03-01 https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/01/china-roundup-apple-closes-app-store-loophole/ "China Roundup: Apple closes a 4-year-old App Store loophole"
** 2020-02-25 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/25/apple-censorship-requests-china-shareholder-groups-proposal
** 2019-04-12 https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/12/18305087/congress-apple-criticism-china-communist-tiananmen-pro-democracy "Lawmakers lash out at Apple for censoring a song about <<tiananmen,Tiananmen Square protests>>"
+
.Chinese flag with Apple characteristics. https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/11/apple-shares-tumble-5-amidst-china-concerns/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Apple_China_flag.png[height=400]
* JPMorgan
** 2016-11 "Sons and Daughters" corruption hiring program for chidren of government officials: https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2016/11/17/jpmorgan-agrees-to-pay-264-million-fine-for-sons-and-daughters-hiring-program-in-china/#46746e305688

.2019 summary of companies that kowtow to China. https://twitter.com/hoho90272496/status/1182669015937966080[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Brand_censorship_chart.jpg[height=600]

.<<rebel-pepper>> 2019-10 carton showing several brands kowtowing to <<xi-jinping>>, while South Park alone gives the middle finger. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/china-hongkong-us-10102019153228.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_bat.jpg[height=400]

.<<rebel-pepper>> 2017-07 showing <<xi-jinping>> eating an Apple Inc. logo referring to the many events where Apple gave in to Chinese demands to have access to the Chinese market. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/China-Apple-cartoon-08242017103540.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Apple.jpg[height=400]

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WBsahU3X4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert[Stephen Colbert] comments in 2015 on how American films make a good image of China to be allowed in China by censors to increase sales.
video::V4WBsahU3X4[youtube,height=400,width=600]

===== LinkedIn

They have a <<anonymous-accounts-ban>> policy:

* https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/28422/names-allowed-on-profiles you have to use your real name
* https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/topics/6042/6059/430 you have to use your real photo

Extremelly dictatorial, we should test other approaches, e.g. background image, and <<copypasta>> on about.

* 2021-03-11 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/11/tech/linkedin-china-microsoft-intl-hnk/index.html "LinkedIn suspends new sign-ups in China":
+
____
We're a global platform with an obligation to respect the laws that apply to us, including adhering to Chinese government regulations for our localized version of LinkedIn in China," LinkedIn added. The company declined to elaborate on which local law it was examining.
____
* 2019-01-04 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/2180620/linkedin-adhering-beijings-rules-censors-chinese-profile-page-us-based "LinkedIn reverses course after censoring Chinese profile page of US-based human rights activist Zhou Fengsuo", see also: <<zhou-fengsuo>>
* 2014-06-04 https://money.cnn.com/2014/06/04/technology/linkedin-china-censorship/ "LinkedIn draws fire for China censorship" mentions: "Some LinkedIn (LNKD) users have received emails from the company in recent days informing them that their posts will not be shown in mainland China."

3 days after <<ciro-santilli>> put up anti-CCP messages on his LinkedIn, the account was banned in China, with a message under https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/cases/36977487[]:
____
Hi Ciro,

Your LinkedIn profile is an integral part of how you present your professional self to the world. That's why we believe it's important to inform you that due to the presence of prohibited content located in the headline, background image and volunteer experience sections of your LinkedIn profile, your profile and your public activity, such as your comments and items you share with your network, will not be made viewable in China. Your profile and activity continues to remain viewable throughout the rest of the countries in which LinkedIn is available.  We will work with you to minimize the impact and can review your profile’s accessibility within China if you update the headline, background image and volunteer experience sections of your profile.  But the decision whether to update your profile is yours.

In February 2014, we began offering a localized version of LinkedIn in China. We believe that people everywhere can benefit from Chinese individuals connecting with each other and LinkedIn members in other parts of the world, and that the creation of economic opportunity can have a profound impact on their lives and the lives of their families and communities.

While we strongly support freedom of expression, we recognized when we launched that we would need to adhere to the requirements of the Chinese government in order to operate in China.  As a reminder, your profile will remain viewable throughout the rest of the countries in which LinkedIn is available. 

If you have any questions, please contact Customer Service.

Regards,

LinkedIn Support Team
____

.3 days after <<ciro-santilli>> put up anti-CCP messages on his LinkedIn, the account was banned in China. They are quite efficient. <<zhou-fengsuo>> had notably https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-linkedin-zhou-fengsuo[previously achieved this]. Another report by a https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/linkedin-censorship-peter-humphrey[Peter Humphrey].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli_LinkedIn_China_ban.png[height=600]

===== Chinese interference in Western media

This lists links between owners of several US media outlets and China: https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/04/has-china-compromised-every-major-mainstream-media-entity/[] "A Rundown Of Major U.S. Corporate Media’s Business Ties To China". No direct evidence that this has affected the news however.

[[china-watch]]
====== China watch (2011-)

Campaign by <<china-daily>> to add paid articles/ads that read like news in/distributed with Western newspapers. They appeared to be marked as China watch ads, but still, they should be crushed.

* 2020-06: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post[Washington Post], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal[Wall Street Journal] and others figure on official fillings of newspapers paid by China Daily: https://efile.fara.gov/docs/3457-Amendment-20200601-2.pdf[].
+
https://www.opindia.com/2020/06/china-propaganda-daily-washington-post-new-york-times-wall-street-journal-millions-dollars-justice-department-newspapers-paid-content/ summarizes:
+
____
As per the documents filed by China Daily with the Justice Department, the Communist party mouthpiece had paid over $6 million to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), $4.6 million to the Washington Post, $2,40,000 to Foreign Policy, $50,000 to the New York Times, $34,600 to The Des Moines Register and $76,000 to CQ-Roll Call.

Besides, spending $11 million in advertising on prominent US papers, China Daily shelled out an additional $7.6 million to The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Houston Chronicle, and The Boston Globe for printing copies of its own paper. For instance, the Los Angeles Times reportedly received $657,523 for printing services. The Communist party-mouthpiece had also spent $2,65,822 on advertising on Twitter.
____
+
The Washington Post is the one that had received the most attention earlier on since 2011:
+
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post#China_Daily_advertising_supplements
** https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/official-chinese-propaganda-now-online-from-the-wapo/70690/ "Official Chinese Propaganda: Now Online from the WaPo!"
+
They even had online distribution channel: http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/ It is https://web.archive.org/web/20200708133054/http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/[dead as of 2020-07], but https://web.archive.org/web/20180330150602/http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/[was alive in 2018]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Telegraph[Daily Telegraph]: UK Daily Telegraph stops publishing section paid for by China[piece of shit] tabloid, it comes as no surprise that they would sell out to any dictatorship
+
2020-04-14 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/daily-telegraph-stops-publishing-section-paid-for-by-china "Daily Telegraph stops publishing section paid for by China"

China Daily itself claims certain partnerships: <<china-daily>> https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/static_e/global.html[]:

____
China Daily has also developed diversified cooperation with over 40 media organizations around the world, including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, etc.
____

===== bandinchina GitHub repository

https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina

Contains a "List of companies who have apologized to the Chinese government and implemented censorship requests".

It only lists companies that implemented censorship outside of China however (with Hong Kong, <<taiwan,Taiwan>> and Macau defined as outside of China), therefore it is basically a Taiwan flag takedown + Hong Kong / Taiwan censorship list:

* https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina/pull/56#issuecomment-541230090
* https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina/pull/84

Other interesting GitHub repositories: <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>.

===== Western companies that stood up against the CCP

See also:

* <<xinjiang-cotton>>

====== Western companies that supported the CCP

See also:

* <<western-companies-that-comply-with-chinese-censorship-requests>>
* <<western-companies-that-sell-censorship-technology-to-dictatorships>>
* <<xinjiang-cotton>>

===== Entertainers who support the CCP

Western:

* <<lebron-james-opposes-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests-2019>>

Chinese who are famous in the West:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Chan#Political_views_and_controversy[Jackie Chan 陳港生] even though he is born in Hong Kong
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3T_Dd3O1UM spoke against the <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests>>
** https://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news/fc/21/216376/Police-chief-says-Jackie-Chan-made-him
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Yifei#Controversy[Liu Yifei 刘亦菲] who starred in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulan_(2020_film)[Mulan 2020] Disney movie. To make matters more fun, some scenes were shot in <<xinjiang>>: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4004891
** https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/disneys-mulan-star-sparks-call-for-boycott-with-hong-kong-stance opposed the <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests>>, notably saying "What a shame for Hong Kong". The <<chinese-government-media,People's Daily>> later quoted her: https://web.archive.org/web/20190816162331/http://en.people.cn/n3/2019/0816/c90000-9606859.html[]

Chinese celebrities who opposed the CCP:

* <<hao-haidong>>

=== Chinese Interference in the Western education systems

Related about university interference:

* 2020-12-05 https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN28F05U "U.S. ends exchange programs with China, calling them 'propaganda'". Only five of the programs were terminated:
** Policymakers Educational China Trip Program
** U.S.-China Friendship Program
** U.S.-China Leadership Exchange Program
** U.S.-China Transpacific Exchange Program
** Hong Kong Educational and Cultural Program
* 2020-06-17 https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/US-blacklists-China-s-MIT-as-tech-war-enters-new-phase Harbin Institute of Technology denied MATLAB support for being in the entity list, apparenty since may: https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2020/05/commerce-department-add-two-dozen-chinese-companies-ties-wmd-and
* 2020-05-28 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/motion-backing-hong-kong-blocked-after-campaign-by-chinese-students-at-warwick-fsdfphr26 "Motion backing Hong Kong blocked after campaign by Chinese students at Warwick". The article mentions that "Just under 1,000 students voted in favour of the motion. Turnout was three times higher than other votes and officials said that it was a new record for participation."
* 2020-08 https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/craven-cowardice-unsw-condemned-for-deleting-posts-critical-of-beijing-20200803-p55hy5.html "'Craven cowardice': UNSW condemned for deleting posts critical of Beijing" University of New South Wales
* 2020-05 Drew Pavlou 柏乐志
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Queensland[University of Queensland], Australia, was trying to get rid of him for anti-CCP campaign
** https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/24/how-a-20-year-old-student-put-the-spotlight-on-australian-universities-cosy-relationship-with-china
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o1sZefER0E <<china-uncensored,China Unscripted>> interview

China buying pre-University educational institutions:

* 2021-02-21 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9282617/British-private-institutions-bought-Chinese-firms.html "The British schools selling out to Beijing: Not only are private institutions being bought by Chinese firms but some are giving communist-approved lessons that are a threat to free speech", gives list of 17 schools bought
* 2019-07-10 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-buy-up-more-of-england-s-private-schools-pjr6692bq "Chinese buy up more of England’s private schools", "Chinese investors have secured another foothold in the English private school sector with the £150 million purchase of CATS colleges."

[[confucius-institute]]
==== Confucius institute (孔子学院)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/孔子学院

News and reports:

* 2019-09 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-49511231 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191013185933/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-49511231[archive]) "Confucius Institutes: The growth of China's controversial cultural branch"
* 2019-01 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2019/01/11/u-s-universities-have-shut-down-confucius-institutes-heres-what-you-need-to-know/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20190616134959/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2019/01/11/u-s-universities-have-shut-down-confucius-institutes-heres-what-you-need-to-know/[archive]) "Why U.S. universities are shutting down China-funded Confucius Institutes"

==== University espionage

Lists:

* 2021-02-08 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/8/uk-academics-investigated-over-china-military-research-report "Nearly 200 British academics at more than 12 universities in the United Kingdom are being investigated on suspicion of unwittingly helping the Chinese government build weapons of mass destruction"
* 2020-06-12 https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/fifty-four-scientists-have-lost-their-jobs-result-nih-probe-foreign-ties "Fifty-four scientists have lost their jobs as a result of NIH probe into foreign ties" and "In 93% of those cases, the hidden funding came from a Chinese institution." and "In the vast majority of cases, Lauer reported, the person being investigated has been an Asian man in his 50s."
* https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1262441045197049856.html List of professors around America caught selling secret research to the Chinese Communist Regime

People:

* 2020-11-17 Song Guo Zheng, Ohio State University
** https://www.linkedin.com/in/song-guo-zheng-md-phd-48893641/
** https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MhjbiKIAAAAJ&hl=en
* 2020-09 Haizhou Hu from University of Virginia: https://www.cbs19news.com/story/42560934/uva-researcher-arrested-on-federal-charges
* 2020-07 Houston consulate closed due to alllegations of facilitating intellectual property theft without public proof
** https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53497193
** https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/02/politics/us-chinese-diplomat-restrictions/index.html "US imposes new restrictions on Chinese diplomats" has been another direct effect of this most likely
* 2020-07 Juan Tang
** https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/23/chinese-researcher-wanted-by-fbi-flees-to-san-francisco-consulate-as-us-china-row-deepens "Chinese researcher wanted by FBI flees to San Francisco consulate as US-China row deepens"
** https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3094511/us-charges-four-scientists-hiding-ties-chinese-government has her PLA photos
* 2020 Hao Zhang: https://www.voanews.com/usa/chinese-professor-convicted-stealing-trade-secrets-china from Avago and Skyworks
* 2020 Charles Lieber
** https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00291-2
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_M._Lieber he had won a Wolf Prize in Chemistry
* 2019 Shih Yi-chi from UCLA
** https://www.linkedin.com/in/yi-chi-shih-9884bb20/
** https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3017017/us-federal-court-finds-chinese-american-engineer-shih-yi-chi-guilty

==== German high school coordinator 2020

YET UNCONFIRMED VIDEO, we have to find who that person is exactly.

The video shows what seems to be Chinese a high school dorm coordinator saying that their Chinese exchange students must staty away from ideas democracy and freedom.

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOArB434ykU
video::aOArB434ykU[youtube,height=400,width=600]

First ripped from uploader's <<tiktok,Douyin>> account named Michael_c118, who also appears to be the person on the video.

Original proeminent report on the West: 2020-10-04 https://twitter.com/SDeutschlands/status/1312682617888796673 by "Voice From Germany 德國之音"

https://m.yorkbbs.ca/forum/chat/5228712.aspx contains reported screenshots of the Douyin profile (no web interface it seems), include a clear face shot.

Video also commented at:

* 2020-10-31 https://forum.gamer.com.tw/C.php?bsn=60076&snA=5984833 from our friends from <<taiwan>>
* 2020-10-25 https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/jhx2mc/chinese_student_coordinator_in_germany_talking_to/ on <<reddit>>
* 2020-19-04 https://twitter.com/HKokbore/status/1312802503956848641

Key markings:

* "德国学校开班会4"
* "This man is a coordinator of Chinese high school students who study in Germany"
* "We have to say there's some problems in our dorm right now"

https://twitter.com/Hujo_DR/status/1312793758203748357/photo/1 is a screenshot of the Douyin profile showing a phone number, which looks like a Chinese number due to prefix 139: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_China#Mobile_phones

The screnshots posted on yorkbbs link him to "北京智享德意国际教育" (Beijing Zhixiang German/Italian International Education).

Googling "北京智享德意国际教育 linkedin" leads to UNCONFIRMED a Yun Xiao https://www.linkedin.com/in/xiaoyun79/ | https://archive.vn/CzZft which is not marked as working in the above organization, but could be the person in the video based on the profile picture (uncertain), and also works with education, thus the Google hit at his current organization (北京智晗未来教育咨询有限公司).

Searching for Google exact hits to "北京智享德意国际教育" leads to https://www.tianyancha.com/company/3283146644 which rejects foreign visits as of 2020-10-26, shows up on Google cache at https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AihPPyAAZr8J:https://www.tianyancha.com/company/3283146644+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=ubuntu[on 2020-10-21] (https://archive.vn/xCfBQ[archive]).

[[thousand-talents-program]]
==== Thousand Talents Program (千人计划)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Talents_Plan
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/海外高层次人才引进计划

<<ciro-santilli>> believes that this is exactly the type of thing that poor countries need to do to get richer: https://cirosantilli.com/#what-poor-countries-have-to-do-to-get-richer[].

But we can't allow China to do it because China is a <<dictatorship,dictatorship>>.

[[cssa]]
==== Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA, 中国学生学者联合会)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Students_and_Scholars_Association

Abbreviation: CSSA.

News and reports:

* 2019-10-13 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-13/cssa-influence-australian-universities-documents-revealed/11587454 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191014032348/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-13/cssa-influence-australian-universities-documents-revealed/11587454[archive]) "Chinese Students and Scholars Association's deep links to the embassy revealed" in Australia.
* 2018-03-07 https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/chinas-long-arm-reaches-into-american-campuses-chinese-students-scholars-association-university-communist-party/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20191012103953/https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/chinas-long-arm-reaches-into-american-campuses-chinese-students-scholars-association-university-communist-party/[archive])

[[ufwd]]
====  United Front Work Department (UFWD, 中共中央统一战线工作部)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Front_Work_Department
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中共中央统一战线工作部

China's "Diaspora management" organ.

The likely organizers behind <<confucius-institute>>, <<cssa>>, and likely several forms of <<astroturfing>>.

==== Astroturfing

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing

[[soft-power]]
===== Soft power (软实力)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/软实力

=== What should pro-democracy Chinese living in China do about the dictatorship?

First of all, hide and stay safe, unless you can deal the final blow. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_War[World at war, 1973], ep. 16:

____
A dictatorship is like a snake. If you put your foot on its tail as you do it, it will just bite you and nobody will be helped. You have to strike the head.
____

Once that is taken care of, a few good options are:

* hide your thoughts, manipulate your enemies, infiltrate the corporate, political and military power circles, and go up the ladder
* if you are an technological innovator, leave China and come work for the West. Don't strengthen commie power.

If you don't manage to do either of the above, don't do any technological work. Go work on the fields or washing dishes. Working well for Chinese companies makes the Chinese <<dictatorship,Dictatorship>> stronger and <<war,more deadly>>. See also: <<embargo>>.

And regardless: remember your kids that the commies are bastards every day.

[[reply-policy]]
=== Ciro Santilli's reply policy (三西猴的回答政策)

People get kind of passionate sometimes about politics. And some of them might also be just malicious <<wumao,wumaos>>, although it is generally not possible to distinguish between them.

If you are not a wumao, consider this:

* Ciro Santilli is one, and antagonists are millions. It is therefore not possible to reply to all antagonists.
* Ciro has in the past tried to be nice to stupid people, and they gave nasty replies
* all discussion is useless, <<effective,only the keyword attack has any chance of having any effect, and even that is slim>>

In order to not waste too much time on those, Ciro Santilli uses the following strategy.

If the original thread post is not very interesting, try to parse it quickly and reply once, always <<better-to-do,linking to the FAQ>>, and then unfollow the thread. This shows that you're still alive, and takes little effort.

Always quote reply, and always write down the ID of the OP on your reply, because discussions like this lead to a large number of comment and account deletions, which could make your reply not make much sense without the context.

Then do your best never to read the inevitable reply again, and above all, never ever reply. An interesting reply never follows from a non-interesting original post. It is hard at first, but you will eventually get the hang of it.

If the user keeps generating notifications, block them as per link:CONTRIBUTING.md[], replying to a single person multiple times is useless.

Never block users for an initial <<shitpost,shitposts>>, just reply with a stupid joke instead. This approach creates more uncertainty and makes you look cooler. Only block if the user is generating multiple notifications.

If a shitpost is made on most other social media except GitHub issues in this repository, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, immediately block the user on that website if you have the permission to do that, with a canned reply:

____
Hi <idiot's name>, I don't reply to China issues here, please open an issue at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues instead, cheers.
____

Note however that this is not possible on idiotic websites like <<quora>> where such comments may be deleted, possibly automatically, who the fuck knows, e.g. as done at: https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-I-walked-around-Beijing-with-a-t-shirt-that-said-freedom-of-speech-is-pretty-great/answer/Ciro-Santilli/comment/143227962 In that case just link to sections of the FAQ, or mute people, or maybe just block all comments on the post to not waste time with new useless notifications.

This is because it is not worth answering anywhere else where the information will be scattered and impossible to find later on, and especially on websites that are already blocked in China. Shitposts on Stack Overflow and other non-blocked websites are encouraged however, as they further help to get the website blocked in China.

For outbursts of activity from Chinese websites, usually programming (<<backlinks,v2ex, hacpai, pincong>>), only post the following canned answer and nothing else, because cowards/people who don't know English from the website might delete your posts, so you shouldn't waste time there with that shit:

____
大家你好

在我的GitHub中国FAQ repository我已经回答了好几个关于我常见的问题。

你们要是在那儿找不到一个回答，请在那个repository开一个issue，我马上就回答。

我不要再在这个网页评论。
____

Finally, don't forget the golden rule from https://biblehub.com/proverbs/26-4.htm[Proverbs 26:4]:

____
Don't answer the foolish arguments of fools, or you will become as foolish as they are.
____

which is now usually seen in the form https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/66460/origin-of-do-not-argue-with-idiots[of unclear attribution]:

____
Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
____

Where basically idiot == someone who creates posts that obviously aren't teaching you any new useful thing, or that not praising you :-)

Alternatively, there is also the Chinese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu[chengyu] version:

____
对牛弹琴
____

which means:

____
Playing the <<music,qin>> to a cow.
____

which means to talk to someone who does not have intellectual conditions of understanding what you are trying to say, bibliography:

* https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-idiom-playing-the-qin-to-a-cow_766205.html
* https://baike.baidu.com/item/对牛弹琴/3490

More <<wumao,wumao>> focused strategies at: <<how-to-deal-with-wumaos>>.

.Cartoon depiction of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu[chengyu] "Playing the <<music,qin>> to a cow" 《对牛弹琴》. https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/438181067.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Play_qin_to_cow.png[height=600]

.XKCD 386 "Duty Calls" and the famous "Someone is wrong on the Internet" quote. It is a waste of time to be like that. https://xkcd.com/386/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Someone_is_wrong_on_the_Internet.png[height=400]

=== Who is behind this amazing FAQ?

[[ciro-santilli]]
==== Ciro Santilli (三西猴)

Original creator of https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship[]: https://cirosantilli.com/

.Ciro testing his webcam for https://askubuntu.com/questions/348838/how-to-check-available-webcams-from-the-command-line/848390#848390[an Ask Ubuntu answer].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli.png[height=400]

[[wife]]
===== Ciro Santilli's wife (三西猴的老婆)

Born and raised in China: <<why-does-ciro-santilli-love-china-so-much>>.

She and her mother do <<falun-gong>>, see also: <<flg-bias>>.

Believes to be descendant of the brother of a recent Qing emperor, see also: <<throne>>.

For this same reason, her father, who Ciro's wife worships, spent around 10 years in the 50's for being branded a counter revolutionary rightist (右派) during one of <<mao-zedong,Mao's>> purges, possibly:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_to_Suppress_Counterrevolutionaries https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/镇压反革命运动
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Rightist_Campaign https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/反右运动

It is also for this reason that many Manchu changed their names to hide their Manchu origins, which makes reconstructing their family tree much harder, as mentioned at: https://www.scmp.com/article/982136/proud-manchu-reclaims-his-rich-heritage for the purposes of <<throne>>.

Ciro's wife:

* studied in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Science_and_Technology_of_China[one of the best universities of China]
* met Ciro his wife when they were in possibly the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_Polytechnique[best engineering university in France] after she had refused opportunities to go to the USA
* obtained a PhD in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_theory[number theory] in one of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_and_Marie_Curie_University[best mathematics universities in the world]

and is way smarter than Ciro.

<<wumao,Wumaos>> can say many things about her, but claiming that she is not intelligent or has no culture or would have any difficulty in obtaining a qualified worker VISA without a marriage, is a lost argument from the start, she would likely kick your butt in a raw intelligence competition.

Ciro is actually the lucky one for having found her!

The fake "the woman makes the man" Obama story comes to mind https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/spousal-success-story/[] (Obama would never say that in public):

____

One night President Obama and his wife Michelle decided to do something out of routine and go for a casual dinner at a restaurant that wasn't too luxurious. When they were seated, the owner of the restaurant asked the President's Secret Service if he could please speak to the First Lady in private. They obliged and Michelle had a conversation with the owner.

Following this conversation President Obama asked Michelle, "Why was he so interested in talking to you?" She mentioned that in her teenage years, he had been madly in love with her. President Obama then said, "So if you had married him, you would now be the owner of this lovely restaurant," to which Michelle responded, "No. If I had married him, he would now be the President."
____

=== How do different websites view Ciro Santilli's profile?

<<meant-to-be-used>> contains a more general overview. This contains website specifics.

==== Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow is where <<ciro-santilli>> started his <<keyword-attack>> originally in 2015 as explained at: <<why-did-ciro-santilli-start-his-keyword-attack>>.

For non-programmers, Stack Overflow is by far the leading programmer question and answer forum of the Internet.

A programmer's daily job involves asking Google about 50 times a day "how to do X", and 90% of the time or more the best answer will be found on the Stack Overflow result that will be one of the top 3 results.

This makes Stack Overflow a fundamental tool of every programmer's daily jobs.

The current community consensus says that keyword attacks are allowed:

* https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/267368/are-political-avatars-and-profiles-ok
* https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/299882/can-a-username-be-considered-spam
* https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/349131/users-political-display-name-triggering-government-action-against-users-who-vie

However, you can't say "Public figure X is disgusting as a person" so <<wumao>>s, could you please report Ciro making fun of Xi Jinping X and see what they do about it?

* https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361486/can-i-say-on-my-profile-that-i-find-that-an-ex-president-of-a-country-or-other
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/286082/does-the-be-nice-policy-require-se-users-to-be-nice-to-people-who-are-not-se-u

Reposts:

* https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1365409005561147397
* https://www.reddit.com/r/DeclineIntoCensorship/comments/lt8ij5/in_stack_overflow_if_is_currently_not_allowed_to/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/FreeSpeech/comments/lt92ni/in_stack_overflow_if_is_currently_not_allowed_to/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/lta1f8/if_a_politician_has_committed_genocide_can_i_say/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/fucktheccp/comments/ltgdpu/leading_programmer_website_stack_overflow_does/

Oh, and you can't criticize God either! https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/231334/is-it-acceptable-to-insult-god-in-a-user-profile

The Chinese law doesn't allow Ciro's profile unfortunately: <<real-username-law>>

Since you will fail through Stack Overflow moderation, please consider instead making a report on the <<cac-report-website>>.

===== Stack Overflow forbids criticizing the character of genocidal political leaders like Xi Jinping

Ciro was actually quite shocked by this.

He thought more people on Stack Overflow would have sided with him and favored stronger freedom of speech.

But this event made him notice that people in Stack Overflow simply didn't push back against Ciro's anti Xi Jinping campaign because they don't know who the fuck Xi Jinping is, or they don't care, or they are completely hypocrite and allow criticizing Xi Jinping but not Trump.

But they do know who Trump is, and "offending Trump" makes their feeble little feelings be hurt, and they must maintain their sacred "<<politically-incorrect,political correctness>>" at all costs, even when talking about politicians. Including that the cost of freedom.

This therefore morally justifies the take-down attempts made by hundreds of <<wumao>>s against Ciro's anti Xi Jinping content.

First by initiative of Stack Overflow employee https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/508266/cesar-m[Cesar Manara (Brazilian)], the sentence:

____
I think Trump is disgusting as a person
____

was removed from Ciro's profile and notified.

In response, Ciro created a meta thread to confirm that the community agreed, and they did: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361486/can-i-say-on-my-profile-that-i-find-that-an-ex-president-of-a-country-or-other[Can I say on my profile that I find that an (ex) president of a country or other major political public figure is “disgusting as a person”?] and the community agreed with the removal: it reached only 5 upvotes and 25 downvotes. Ciro's profile at the time was linked to Trump's ban on social media: link:trump-ban-is-bad.md[].

Ciro then created https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361493/if-a-politician-has-committed-genocide-can-i-say-on-my-profile-they-look-like-w[If a politician has committed genocide, can I say on my profile they look like Winnie-the-Pooh to insult them because they hate that?] was it was also mostly downvoted, and deleted, without any answer. Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20210227034430/https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361493/if-a-politician-has-committed-genocide-can-i-say-on-my-profile-they-look-like-w also reproduced at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/198#issuecomment-787047672 The deletion voters were:

* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/215590/polygeo (Australia, big Geographic Information System person, real name based on https://polygeo.com.au/elearning-videos/[] "Graeme Browning")
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/135565/journeyman-geek (Singapore). Site elected admin at the time, which implies that his deletion cannot be undone by non-admins. TODO are they born in Singapore? If yes they might also be pro Xi Jinping, which is a clear conflict of interest with freedom of speech. But their English sounds perfect, so Ciro is not sure if it is common for Singapore natives or not.
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/140890/martijn-pieters (UK, lots of Python rep)

There was no yes/no answer by anyone, because the of cowardice and hypocrisy:

* saying "you can" would imply you can criticize Trump
* saying "you can't" would imply they support genocide

So their brains just tilted, and they clicked the "delete" button as the only possible resolution. The overly speedy deletion of posts was then raised as an issue two days later for an unrelated post: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/405585/can-we-slow-down-on-the-deletes-on-meta-folks

Then Ciro created an answer to https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/286082/does-the-be-nice-policy-require-se-users-to-be-nice-to-people-who-are-not-se-u/361497#361497["Does the Be Nice policy require SE users to “be nice” to people who are not SE users (e.g. public figures)?"] which is a superset of the previous ones referred by them. That post is reproduced at https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/198#issuecomment-787047242 It cites the case in which the law was tested, but it was single-handedly by journeyman-geek (from Singapore) without any justification.

Ciro then finally updated his profile picture to contain <<xi-pooh-photoshop>>, archive at: https://archive.vn/iV1L8 to test the Winnie-the-Pooh case which people simply refused to answer. Let's see show that goes. As Ciro learned however, only wumaos will continue to complain, and due to hypocrisy their complaints will be ignored.

Other users who publicly went against freedom of speech in that case (in the name of "political correctness"):

* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/665544/bad-coder ("West") replied at: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361486/can-i-say-on-my-profile-that-i-find-that-an-ex-president-of-a-country-or-other/361495#361495
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/798831/ollie comments, Ciro replies, they delete comment, comments, Ciro reply, they delete comment... Ciro gives up
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361486/can-i-say-on-my-profile-that-i-find-that-an-ex-president-of-a-country-or-other?noredirect=1#comment1206900_361486 wants to close as duplicate of uber generic https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/208551/offensive-profiles-where-to-draw-the-line/208553#208553 and says:
+
____
we don't have to host or pay directly or indirectly to support your opinion. That's well established policy"
____

Freedom of speech in social media is truly threatened by the <<politically-incorrect>>.

Related issue: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/198

===== Other openly dissident users on Stack Overflow

For non-Stack Overflow specific ones see: <<chinese-dissidents>>

Query to find them: https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/312860/chinese-dissidents-by-keyword-aboutme-or-displayname

Notable ones only here (high rep or innovative criticism):

* "GNUSupporter 8964民主女神 地下教會"
** Real name: Vincent Tam from social media links.
** https://math.stackexchange.com/users/290189/gnusupporter-8964民主女神-地下教會#
** https://web.archive.org/web/20191209202831/https://math.stackexchange.com/users/290189/gnusupporter-8964%E6%B0%91%E4%B8%BB%E5%A5%B3%E7%A5%9E-%E5%9C%B0%E4%B8%8B%E6%95%99%E6%9C%83
** Keyword attack inspired by me
* Yu Hao
** https://stackoverflow.com/users/1009479/yu-hao
** https://archive.is/76FCb
** "<<gfw,GFW (Great Firewall of China)>> is one of the most notorious inventions in the history of Internet. Anyone working for it should be ashamed."
* gotqn
** "Free Tibet From China Domination"
** https://stackoverflow.com/users/1080354/gotqn
** https://web.archive.org/web/20190821105901/https://stackoverflow.com/users/1080354/gotqn
* Scott 混合理论
+
https://stackoverflow.com/users/1230329/scott-混合理论
+
The same message as Yu Hao, I wonder if it is an external thing or direct copy of Yu, but no Google hits besides them.
* Terry Wang
** https://stackoverflow.com/users/1801697/terry-wang
** https://archive.is/V0aSK
** Lego recreation of Tankman on the profile picture: <<lego-tank-man>>

Users who had <<gfw,GFW>> references but removed it:

* https://stackoverflow.com/users/4594532/gnimuc-key
** https://web.archive.org/web/20170331144256/https://stackoverflow.com/users/4594532/gnimuc
* https://stackoverflow.com/users/651907/jclin
** https://web.archive.org/web/20160516065151/https://stackoverflow.com/users/651907/jclin

Misc interesting stuff:

* <location>火车站酒店小姐 (about 20 accounts with that pattern)
** https://stackoverflow.com/users/7040504/莆田火车站酒店小姐
** https://web.archive.org/web/20190428090348/https://stackoverflow.com/users/7040504/%E8%8E%86%E7%94%B0%E7%81%AB%E8%BD%A6%E7%AB%99%E9%85%92%E5%BA%97%E5%B0%8F%E5%A7%90
** Interesting list of prostitution spam/sockpuppets? All have the exact same profile information.
** Hitting query due to "审查", but the usage is unrelated to the Firewall.

Query to find them: https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/312863/mentioned-ciro-santilli-on-aboutme-or-displayname

====== Stack Overflow anti-dissident users

* https://stackoverflow.com/users/815408
** https://web.archive.org/web/20170602054631/https://stackoverflow.com/users/815408/%E8%AF%B7%E5%B0%81%E6%8E%89ciro-santilli-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%85%B1%E4%BA%A7%E5%85%9A%E4%B8%87%E5%B2%81
*** username: "请封掉Ciro Santilli 中国共产党万岁"
*** profile: "中国万岁！ 中国共产党万岁！ 法轮功，民运，台独在中国共产党的铁蹄下不过是螳臂当车！"
** https://web.archive.org/web/20200830192811/https://stackoverflow.com/users/815408/lookintoeast became a coward, renamed to "LookIntoEast"
*** https://web.archive.org/web/20200910172706/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/63464732/how-to-set-a-custom-image-height-for-an-image-in-asciidoctor more shitcomments "可惜啊中国一天比一天强大繁荣，中国的实力碾压你们轮子跟捏死一只蚂蚁那么简单。哈哈哈哈", Yes, the CCP is very good at <<intolerance,putting old ladies in jail>>. A great thing to be proud of.
** mentioned at https://v2ex.com/t/378274 from <<v2ex>>
** a questions only account, not many intelligent CCP supporters out there of course. 2020 edit mentions: https://web.archive.org/web/20200910173714/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7152762/how-to-redirect-print-output-to-a-file-using-python mentions "How time flies. Almost 10 years ago I started to work on bioinformatics without any coding skills. Then I gave up my PhD and previous career and becomes a pure software engineer."
* https://stackoverflow.com/users/9393161
** https://web.archive.org/save/https://stackoverflow.com/users/9393161/ciro-santilli-%E7%9A%84%E9%80%A0%E8%B0%A3%E6%98%AF%E5%8F%AF%E8%80%BB%E8%A1%8C%E4%B8%BA
** username: "Ciro Santilli 的造谣是可耻行为" https://web.archive.org/save/https://stackoverflow.com/users/9393161/ciro-santilli-%E7%9A%84%E9%80%A0%E8%B0%A3%E6%98%AF%E5%8F%AF%E8%80%BB%E8%A1%8C%E4%B8%BA
* https://stackoverflow.com/users/8454187
** username: "Snowden Assange Wounded Knee"
** profile: "燃(ri)烧(si)您(ni)的(de)梦(ma)，Ciro Santilli. StackOverflow上的一个用户. The Oliver Stone Experience"
** explanation:
*** "燃烧您的梦": http://www.nq6.com/dj/1674.html
*** "Wounded Knee": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre

==== GitHub

GiHub is the new <<xidan-democracy-wall>>! :) See also: <<meant-to-be-used>>.

GitHub's site policy can be seen at: https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy

If you believe this page violates those policies, see: <<github-report>>.

China's GitHub censorship history is documented at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_GitHub#China[], some events:

* 2019-07-29 https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/29/github-ban-sanctioned-countries/ "GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea". "As part of the push, Friedman said GitHub has enforced new restrictions to prevent users in sanctioned countries from accessing private repositories and GitHub Marketplace, as well as maintaining private paid organization accounts"
** https://github.com/1995parham/github-do-not-ban-us protest repo against the sanctions, archived as of 2020-08
** https://github.com/1995parham/github-do-not-ban-us/issues/1010 "Use gitee from china" recommending <<gitee>>

Related:

* <<censorship-circumvention>> contains some anti-censorship repositories
* <<cute-cat-theory-of-digital-activism>>
* https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/07/scratch-ban-in-china/ Scratch visual programming language for children website blocked
* https://www.quora.com/Is-GitHub-com-allowed-in-China/answer/Ciro-Santilli

[[github-report]]
===== How to report a user on GitHub (GitHub上怎么举报用户？)

Click the report abuse button on https://github.com/cirosantilli[Ciro's profile], which links to: https://github.com/contact/report-abuse?report=cirosantilli+%28user%29 or you can just contacat support@github.com

If you do so, please feel free to also open an issue on this repository saying why you believe the site policy has been violated.

Those issues will be marked with: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Aabuse-report+

It will be fun to watch you try, and fail.

This is because you do not understand how important the concept of <<richer,freedom of speech is>> in the West, and how amazing it feels when you are right, and it protects you.

The only thing that would work is if the Chinese government makes a gov-takedown on this repo: <<github-gov-takedowns>>, in which case: <<strategy-if-this-repo-gets-added-to-github-gov-takedowns>>.

In order to get this repository in gov-takedown, your best bet is to use the <<cac-report-website>>.

.How to report an user on GitHhub.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/How_to_report_an_user_on_GitHub.png[height=2000]

===== GitHub censored subdomains

It appears according to <<greatfire>> however that there are some important GitHub censored subdomains, notably:

* https://raw.githubusercontent.com[], from which images and other downloads are served. Therefore all images served from GitHub should be broken in China
* https://gist.github.com[], https://en.greatfire.org/https/gist.github.com[]: meh, that's useless, just create a github.com/notes repo and dump your stuff there

However, at least for raw, <<geoscreenshot>> disagrees:

* 2020-09-30 https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship | http://web.archive.org/web/20200930075102/https://s3.amazonaws.com/geoscreenshot-static/d3fdb97d-2ac3-4f57-a737-6fab2997fb1a.html
* 2020-09-30 https://gist.github.com/ | https://archive.vn/wip/VUNU4

More information:

* https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/146517/how-it-is-possible-that-some-pages-of-an-https-website-like-github-are-marked-as
* https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1310461733325148160

===== GitHub gov-takedowns

https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns

GitHub has absolute transparency on Government takedowns, which is awesome: https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/tree/master/China

This makes that repo into a list of fun things.

As of 2019-05 there had only been only two takedowns by China however, compared to dozens by <<russia>>. The Chinese commies are not big fans of transparency it seems.

As of 2020-03, besides the <<programthink,Zhao>> takedown, all other takedowns happened in 2019, and most seem to be <<falun-gong>>/<<epoch-times>> sponsored ways to <<censorship-circumvention,climb the wall>>.

The message GitHub shows on the blocked countries is:

____
Repository unavailable in your location

This repository is currently disabled in your location. For more details please see the takedown notice.
____

Here are some examples of people reacting to the blocking of https://github.com/programthink/zhao/issues/38 as per https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/78775b09e64d85f08547287cab204b48b2491192/China/2016/2016-06-08-programthink-zhao.md from China (and likely on the entire repository, which appears to be the block granularity implemented):

* https://github.com/programthink/books/issues/31 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191023093618/https://github.com/programthink/books/issues/31[archive])
* https://www.zhihu.com/question/284445884/ corresponding Google bomb at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/71
* https://program-think.blogspot.com/2018/04/Zhao-at-GitHub.html?comment=1524671692761#1524671692761

See also: <<programthink>>

To check China only takedowns such as this, we cannot use <<censorship-monitoring,Great Fire Analyzer>>, which reports the page as accessible: the only tool <<ciro-santilli>> could find so far to capture a page from China a bit like Web Archive was: <<geoscreenshot>>

.<<geoscreenshot>> of https://github.com/programthink/zhao/issues/38 from <<programthink>> taken on 2020-09-31 from China. The "Repository unavailable in your location" message shows, since https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/China/2016/2016-06-08-programthink-zhao.md[this repository is in gov-takedowns/china].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/GitHub_Programthink_Zhao_issue_38_China_geoscreenshot_2020_09_31.png[height=400]

====== Strategy if this repo gets added to GitHub gov-takedowns

If this happens, we well proceed to create alternative repos `china-dictatorship-2`, `china-dictatorship-3`, etc. and it would be fun to see how that gets handled.

Can they add an entire user to gov-takedowns?

But remember that we also have: <<mirrors>>, and that this can be easily rendered as a single HTML page and uploaded to any static website host.

[[gov-takedowns-china]]
====== gov-takedowns/China

Skipping all <<falun-gong>>/<<epoch-times>> repos with very few stars, mostly some <<gfw>> skip methods, those are noise, and possibly added only to dilute the real deal.

* 2016
** https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/caef002cb19309c318ea01afb4d3cec98bcd4042/China/2016/2016-06-08-programthink-zhao.md[] https://github.com/programthink/zhao[]. <<programthink,Zhao>>
* 2019
** https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/China/2019/2019-11-06-MPS.md
*** https://github.com/greatfire/wiki Wiki of <<greatfire>>. <<censorship-circumvention>>. Precise issue: https://github.com/greatfire/wiki/issues/166[] (no archives). 
** https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/China/2019/2019-12-12-MPS.md
*** https://github.com/gfw-breaker[], see also: <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>

===== GitHub repositories with censored information

For lists of censored information outside of GitHub see: <<lists-of-material-censored-in-china>>.

For content outside of GitHub: <<lists-of-material-censored-in-china>>.

Mentioned in other sections:

* <<nine-nine-six-icu>>
* <<nCovMemory>>
* <<bandinchina-github-repository>>
* https://github.com/jasonqng/chinese-keywords mentioned at <<where-can-i-find-good-words-for-a-keyword-attack>>
* https://github.com/programthink/zhao from <<programthink>>
* <<censorship-monitoring-tools-on-github>>
* <<huawei>>:
** https://github.com/evil-huawei/evil-huawei
** https://github.com/HuaweiJoke/Huawei-Joke
* https://github.com/fuck-xuexiqiangguo/Fuck-XueXiQiangGuo from <<fuck-xuexiqiangguo>>
* from <<metoo>>
** https://github.com/sikaozhe1997/Xin-Yue/blob/master/letter.md
** https://github.com/CNwoman-bot/evil-man
* https://github.com/fuckcqcs/fuckcqcs at <<changsheng-bio-technology-vaccine-data-falsification-incident-2018>>

Not mentioned in other sections:

* taibangle (太棒了)
** https://github.com/taibangle/awesome-china
** https://github.com/taibangle/lennon-wall
* https://github.com/sikaozhe1997/Xin-Yue
* https://github.com/Project-Gutenberg/Pincong see also <<pincong>>
* https://speechfree.github.io/cultural-revolution-database/ 中国文化大革命文库 The Chinese Cultural Revolution Database
* https://github.com/Luterngun/Record_of_Survival_in_Digital_Totalitarian_Era[] small docuement that goes over <<censorship-circumvention>> and opsec. There was a PDF on GitHub but got removed from master (still in Git history), now links to external websites only. Newbs.
* https://github.com/nodebe4 personal account with anti-CCP projects
** https://twitter.com/tansunit claims name 陳純一, "Previous: NGO worker, educator, social activist. Present: Master student @Univ_Paris"
** https://github.com/NodeBE4/hero 自由人的英雄榜 "List of fredom heroes"
** https://github.com/NodeBE4/impact good list of Chinese political projects on GitHub
* https://github.com/woct0rdho/pkuholebackup/ appears to contain a list of posts of anonymized (Alice/Bob/Carol/Dave/...) deleted posts from some Peking University (PKU) chat system. The posts are from 2013 to 2019. TODO how could they obtain that list? Who delete the posts in the first place? Authors or authority?

Interesting users:

* https://github.com/gfw-breaker
** appears to give a lot of focus to <<falun-gong>>, e.g.:
*** https://github.com/gfw-breaker/truth Falun Gong information repository
*** https://github.com/gfw-breaker/banned-news1 automatic scraper of news from banned websites into the repository, with top sites being <<falun-gong-media>>
** present in <<gov-takedowns-china>>
* https://github.com/bannedbook
** https://github.com/bannedbook/fanqiang is the main repository about <<censorship-circumvention>>, TODO what it contains exactly? Code, or just documentation of existing methods?
* https://github.com/breakwa11 likely previous ShadowsocksR dev: <<censorship-circumvention>>, 10k+ followers 2020, but no repos, so forced takedown.

Non-information but also interesting:

* https://github.com/lurongkai/anti-baidu

TODO evaluate:

* https://github.com/sky8964/home

Reasonable topics:

* https://github.com/topics/censorship

[[terminus2049]]
====== Terminus2049 (端点星计划)

* https://github.com/Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io
* https://terminus2049.github.io/
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/端点星事件
* https://2049bbs.xyz/
* previous project name: https://github.com/Info-cn/Terminus

Jekyll GitHub Pages repository that saves full text copies of censored articles:

____
本仓库存放被删文章

This repository stores deleted articles.
____

Also accompanies a dynamic forum https://2049bbs.xyz/ which appears to be where content for the static pages gets discussed and brought up. But it possible that the website has been compromised and is leaking identity of users. At some point, https://2049bbs.xyz went down. Live https://web.archive.org/web/20200719151022/https://2049bbs.xyz/ dead: https://archive.vn/JFqCJ

The "Terminus" in the repo name seems to be a reference to Isaac Asimov's fictional https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Terminus[Terminus planet] which is called https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/端点星[端点星] in Chinese, but it is not clear where the 2049 comes from in that context. Forgetting the Chinese name, Terminus2049 could be a reference to the fictional https://bladerunner.fandom.com/wiki/World_War_Terminus["World War Terminus"] from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_2049[Blade Runner 2049 (2019)] movie, which also explains the 2049.

First commint on 2018-04-27, GitHub pages domain blocked in China at least since 2019-03 according to <<greatfire>>: https://zh.greatfire.org/search/all/https%3A//terminus2049.github.io but not in <<github-gov-takedowns>> as of 2020-04.

The full post list can be seen most conveniently at: https://github.com/Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io/tree/master/_posts The number of articles is insane, usually several every day.

Most articles appear to be taken from recent news at the time of writting, although there are a few from before the repo started. As of 2020-04, the oldest article was from 2016 <<metoo>> events reported by Yue Xin, some other topics include:

* <<gay-rights>> https://github.com/Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2018-04-14-LGBTRights-advocacy-china.md
* <<nine-nine-six-icu>> https://github.com/Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2019-04-04-996-ICU.md
* <<lebron-james-opposes-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests-2019>> https://github.com/Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2019-10-11-NBA.md

They use Jekyll tags a lot, which makes for a good grouping of the topics.

In 2020-04-25, it was reported that three Beijing-based contributors were arrested during <<corona>>:

* https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3081569/chinese-activists-detained-after-sharing-censored-coronavirus
* https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/7-04252020144555.html Chinese article, gives the Chinese names, and some background on the arrested people
* https://qz.com/1846277/china-arrests-users-behind-github-coronavirus-memories-page/

People:

* Chen Mei (陈玫)
** https://www.linkedin.com/in/玫-陈-1607b735/ a LinkedIn account with matching photo and name
** chanmei007@gmail.com
** https://github.com/cmmei[], down 2020-12, live archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20200101232039/https://github.com/cmmei[]. Includes https://web.archive.org/web/20180611153507/https://github.com/cmmei/Banned-zh
* Cai Wei (蔡伟)
** https://github.com/thphd/2047 mentioned below reveals and email caiw15@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn and profiles/further aliases:
*** https://github.com/Tsai1993
*** https://tsai1993.github.io
*** https://mastodon.xyz/@ciao
*** tsai1993@qq.com
*** Tsai2049@gmail.com
* Xiao Tang (小唐), who is also Cai Wei's girlfriend

In 2020-06-12 their families received calls saying that they had been charged with <<picking-quarrels>>:

* https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3089002/coronavirus-chinese-activists-held-posting-censored-articles
* https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/10-06122020154234.html

Ciro's petition to free them: https://github.com/cirosantilli/chen-mei-cai-wei-ziyou

How their identities were found:

* https://github.com/Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io/issues/598 offers a good analysis
* https://pincong.rocks/question/24370
* https://gist.github.com/chinatimeline/5386a4f9d82483aa5346b17d8d324877 comments by <<chinatimeline>> and gives further opsec guidelines

Terrible opsec... they used real name GitHub emails on early commits, including the institutional university address, before they started better opsec under https://github.com/TerminusBot / terminus2049@protonmail.com

https://github.com/thphd/2047 is a project to restore terminus, live at https://2047.name[] Ciro mention at: https://2047.name/e/76182458[] by https://2047.name/u/5155 which is similar to a <<mohu>> mention, so they seem to share the database? Who knows what's the relation between all those <<pincong>> lookalikes. TODO that website shows an <<icp-license>>? Very confusingly also mirrored at https://pincong.org e.g. https://pincong.org/t/10219[]/https://2047.name/t/10219[], which is very similar to <<pincong>>'s address. Related account: https://github.com/PincongBot

https://2047.name[] has a links section at: https://2047.name/links shown on the sideboard, containg links of interest. Some all not are very China specific.

https://2047.name/register registration requires an invitation code.

https://github.com/2049bbs/2049bbs.github.io[] / https://2049bbs.github.io/[] maintains another archive up to 2019-03-03.

.Side-by-side photos of Chen Mei (陈玫) and Cai Wei (蔡伟). https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/7-04252020144555.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Chenmei_Caowei.png[height=400]

[[chinatimeline]]
====== chinatimeline (中国时间线)

https://github.com/chinatimeline/chinatimeline.github.io

Explores several sensitive topics through interesting timelines with many pictures, for example:

* <<tiananmen>>: https://chinatimeline.github.io/tiananmen/
* <<corona>>: https://chinatimeline.github.io/wuhan-coronavirus/
* religious persecution, including <<falun-gong>>: https://chinatimeline.github.io/religion_tl1/

Some minor relationships with <<terminus2049>>:

* https://github.com/chinatimeline/chinatimeline.github.io/issues/3
* https://gist.github.com/chinatimeline/5386a4f9d82483aa5346b17d8d324877

====== duty-machine

The anonymous user https://github.com/duty-machine has some automation setup such that anyone can request certain webpages to be copied on to GitHub anonymously through a separate website, notably:

* https://github.com/duty-machine/duty-machine[]: big Chinese social media, e.g. Weibo, <<zhihu>>, Douban. Articles stored in issues. Archive requests: https://archives.duty-machine.now.sh/
* https://github.com/duty-machine/news[]: big Western news websites like Reuters, BBC, etc. Articles stored in-tree.

The project claims to have been inspired by <<terminus2049>>, but hopefully they will have better operational security.

Unfortunately, it was found that the project could be used by malicious users to at mention spam GitHub users: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/192[], let's see if they patch it.

[[zhao-heming]]
====== Zhao Heming (召赫名)

A few accounts were created by this pseudonym, e.g.:

* https://github.com/zaohmeing/21-[]: https://github.com/zaohmeing/21-/blob/master/.gitignore
* https://github.com/zhaohmng/-21-[]: https://github.com/zhaohmng/-21-/blob/master/%231a.txt The repository was deleted as of March 2021, TODO why?
** Ciro's fork: https://github.com/cirosantilli/-21-
** archive from December 2020: https://web.archive.org/web/20201225094655/https://github.com/zhaohmng/-21-

Much more sanely encoded/formatted/rendered versions can be found at:

* https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/blob/master/21century.md[]. Copied from https://matters.news/@halanh/网传70岁赫连禾用大半生研究构建-21世纪新政-引发专家们高度关注-bafyreihnbf6jyzvwyybwl5hym2nikj5zrpwxli6nphzylvdq6btsbydn3y
* https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/blob/master/wang-huning-three-dynasties.adoc[]. Copied from: https://matters.news/@halanh/三朝罪恶元凶王沪宁-bafyreifrjf5ce45fqpif4nms4x72mlrbyijs7bffqi7f7sng47fuelkhmm

Both Zhao Heming repos contain reproductions of two manifestos are pasted together on a single file, and somewhat broken encoding.

Ciro noticed that thoe repos attracted an incredible ammount of <<wumao>> on the comments, despite having very simple copy pasted content, it was very impressive!!! Ciro was jealous, and added some anti-wumao comments in. On commits:

* https://github.com/zhaohmng/-21-/commit/0cc2b2a546ad51fb360ba800c67b057ea3270869#commitcomment-47495235
* https://github.com/zaohmeing/21-/commit/42de05338193f39981b1a820873a990c959fd6ec#commitcomment-47392119

https://github.com/zhaohmng/-21-/issues/416#issuecomment-784939665 "为什么这个屎一样的东西会出现在我个人主页左侧的repositories中，那里不是应该只有自己的项目才会出现吗？有办法屏蔽它吗？还是github故意的？" explains why so many people come comment in the repository: it is because it appears on the "Explore repositories" repository suggestions which show on the side bar of your GitHub homepage, and on searches. This was also mentioned at: 

After further inspection, taught understood that repository descriptions given to GitHub can be really huge for SEO: they had pasted the entire 21st century text there. So Ciro attempted the same approach, and pasted all of link:21century.md[], link:wang-huning-three-dynasties.adoc[] and link:fifth-modernization.md[] in there on 2021-03-23, and the effect was dramatic: an immediate 4x more views on the following day according to https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/graphs/traffic[] (40 unique visitors to 100 on a Wednesday), and a few wumao comments. And a wumao soon confirmed that it was working directly: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/201[]. This can be automated with: link:description.sh[].

Further optimizations:

* https://github.com/kon9chunkit/GitHub-Chinese-Top-Charts Some processing to increase density creates a BOMB:
+
....
#!/usr/bin/env bash
printf 学习强国
printf 预测结果导出
printf 赖伟林
printf 刺杀小说家
printf 购物商场
printf 英语词汇量小程序
printf 联级选择器
printf Bitcoin
printf 区块链
cat README.md |
grep -P '^\|\d' |
cut -d\| -f4 |
perl -CSDA -pe 'use utf8;s/:[a-zA-Z0-9]+/ /g' |
perl -CSDA -pe 'use utf8;s/[、，,—【】。；（）！－>｜：《》「…￣ﾉ·‘’!@#$%^&*()_\+\-=\/\\;:[\]{}.,`~'"'"'" \x{200D}\x{10000}-\x{1FFFF}\x{2B00}-\x{2BFF}\x{25A0}-\x{25FF}\x{2600}-\x{26FF}\x{2700}-\x{27BF}\x{1F300}-\x{1F5FF}]+/ /g' |
perl -CSDA -pe 'use utf8;s/https? +//i' |
perl -CSDA -pe 'use utf8;s/[a-zA-Z0-9 ]{32,}//g' |
tr -d '\n' |
head -c 64000
....
+
Ciro started using that one instead to see if it was going to be more effective on 2021-03-28. First it hit a peak of 168 visitors on Monday 2021-03-29, and then fell back to 90 and 81 on the following days, so similar to the previous Chinese political input. It is very hard to understand why the first day was so different.
* https://github.com/trending?since=monthly&spoken_language_code=zh trending Chinese repositories
+
A large part of those projects falls in the following categories:
+
** interview preparation. Competition is of course cutthroat with such a large population.
** collections of interesting things Chinese like repositories or blog posts

Furthermore, Ciro later noticed that under GitHub's settings, there is a "Preferred spoken language" box described as "We'll use this language preference to filter the trending repository lists on Explore and our Trending Repositories page." Therefore, the secret to get lots of hits is to add Chinese programming keywords to the repository description string.

New issues:

* https://github.com/zhaohmng/-21-/issues/533 "Thank you for this great repository. Human rights and freedom of speech are more important than money. github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship"
* https://github.com/zaohmeing/21-/issues/138 "Why put the censored content in the .gitignore?"

On top commented/liked issues:

* https://github.com/zhaohmng/-21-/issues/190#issuecomment-784921038
* https://github.com/zhaohmng/-21-/issues/224#issuecomment-784901942
* https://github.com/zhaohmng/-21-/issues/319#issuecomment-784903480
* https://github.com/zhaohmng/-21-/issues/325#issuecomment-784922882 "看你发的“美中”而不是“中美”我就知道你TM是轮子" claims they are <<falun-gong>>
* https://github.com/zhaohmng/-21-/issues/346#issuecomment-784936138 "那么问题来了,为什么美国及西方和越南共产党亲近呢?" the US allies with Vietnam Communists for geopolitical reasons only, not because it has any ideology

The first is "21世纪新政宣言" (New System Declaration for the 21st Century).

It proposes a peaceful reunification of China with <<taiwan>> under their specified political system described in 12 paragraphs. This system is a reformed type of Western democracy, which the manifesto also criticize downsides of.