The Purge in China — For a few hours, China’s netizens got to unleash their wrath on their government

3 min readApr 14, 2022

It’s gone unnoticed by many, but Chinese netizens had a brief few hours of freedom on 14 April 2022 to criticize the Chinese government, before Weibo’s censorship mechanisms kicked in.

Original image from Internet of Business

Around midnight on 14 April 2022 in China, two intriguing topics started trending on Weibo. #1 was about Shanghai having investigated COVID-related rumors. #2 claims that the US has the worst human rights in the world.

Social media platforms in China are heavily monitored by the Chinese government. Such topics with political sensitivities would not have made it into the charts unless approved by the authorities, so netizens were quick to identify these as information campaigns by the Chinese government.

“So this could be considered as propaganda efforts rather what netizens were genuinely interested in.” — @ThisIsWenhao on Twitter

The propaganda didn’t work thanks to the Chinese netizens’ wit.

Using the hashtag about US being the worst in human rights, netizens made use of satire and wit to unleash their wrath on the Chinese government. Here are some hilarious examples of Chinese netizens being witty —

Roughly translated to: #UShastheworsthumanrights# late retirement, 996 work culture, insane housing prices, crazy interests, low income, China definitely has the best human rights! (Image source: @ThisisWenhao on Twitter)

Roughly translated to: #UShastheworsthumanrights# Doesn’t matter that we seal people’s doors, kill pets, waste medical resources which led to the death of many people who didn’t get treatment in time. We have the lowest death count at 0! (Image source: @ThisisWenhao on Twitter)

Some even intentionally replaced “China” with “US” in their satirical remarks —

Roughly translated to: #UShastheworsthumanrights# Exactly! Women in America are locked in the homes they paid for just so they can give birth to 8 children. Americans have a 996 work culture with no manpower laws nor workers’ unions. Americans have to pay exorbitant rents, to the extent that their own citizens can’t afford their own meals after paying for their rent. The American government is the worst, they are too scary! Thank goodness I was born in China! (Image source: @ThisisWenhao on Twitter)

Of course, there were also netters who chose to be more direct —

Roughly translated to: #UShastheworsthumanrights# Look into the mirror to see how you have been treating your own citizens! Look at American reports, Chinese citizens were deprived of food and medicine, did you know Americans didn’t have to pay for COVID treatment? Others have already began to coexist with the virus. The Chinese government is shameless, we are the most authoritarian, most deprived of human rights in the world! (Image source: @ThisisWenhao on Twitter)

Even those who held negative views of the US laughed at state’s clumsy attempt at trying to redirect their attention.

Roughly translated to: #UShastheworsthumanrights# hahaha although the US is quite a hypocritical nation, your shenanigan at this time… let’s not pretend that we’re that great either ya? (Image source: @ThisisWenhao on Twitter)

A few hours later (at around 4:19am in China), posts using the hashtag about US having the worst human rights were taken down from the platform. Only posts by verified accounts (in agreement with the hashtag) were allowed to exist.

However, Chinese netizens were not wavered.

They then proceeded to make use of the hashtag about Shanghai’s investigations into COVID rumors to continue making satirical remarks about the Chinese government.

Roughly translated to: #ShanghaiinvestigatesCOVIDrumours# US retracted that hashtag so quickly. No wonder they are so good at cyber warfare. China baby can’t compete with them! I’m so angry! (Image source: @ThisisWenhao on Twitter)

As of 8am in China on 14 April 2022, only the hashtag about Shanghai’s investigations into COVID rumors remain.

1–0 to the people!

It is a mystery how Weibo/the Chinese government allowed these insinuating posts to stay up for such a long time. Regardless, this few hours of freedom has proven that China’s netizens are more than capable of outsmarting and subverting their government’s censors.

(PS: Thanks Chee Ming for your help with the translations)