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A Malaysian comedian has been banned from China’s Twitter-like social media platform, days after he published clips from a live show predicting his skits about Beijing’s heavily censored politics and Chinese leader Xi Jinping would land him in trouble.
Nigel Ng, who performs under the persona “Uncle Roger,” last week posted a trailer of his new show on Twitter, in which he jokes about China’s surveillance state and begs the Chinese Communist Party not to “make him disappear.”
“Uncle Roger about to get canceled,” Ng wrote on Twitter last Tuesday alongside a clip of his show.
By Saturday his account on China’s highly censored Weibo platform had been barred from creating new posts. A message on the page said Ng was blocked “due to the violation of relevant laws and regulations,” but gave no further details.
CNN has reached out to both Ng and Weibo for comment.
Ng’s full stand-up show is slated for video release on June 4, the anniversary of the bloody 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square that is a highly sensitive date for Chinese authorities.
His suspension comes at a time of renewed focus on how Beijing’s authoritarian leadership views comedy and cracks down on those deemed to have crossed political red lines.
