Authoritarian regimes worldwide have embraced the digital age. And they have been generally effective at limiting the online presence of perceived adversaries within their borders—from intellectual dissidents to transnational activists.
October 4, 2022
Authoritarian regimes worldwide have embraced the digital age. And they have been generally effective at limiting the online presence of perceived adversaries within their borders—from intellectual dissidents to transnational activists.
However, as a new study published in the journal New Media & Society shows, censorship is not strictly a state-run affair. By studying social media posts of a Chinese online subculture community, the researchers found that members regularly engaged in a form of participatory censorship even in a non-political context. The study’s co-authors are Zhifan Luo, an assistant professor of sociology and anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Science, and Muyang Li at York University in Toronto.
The researchers collected and analyzed more than 323,000 posts and comments from a community on Douban, a non-political Chinese social media site dedicated to cultural and entertainment discussion. The subcommunity they chose to study was dedicated to a television show adapted from a genre of queer-fantasy fiction known as danmei, which centralizes romantic relationships between male characters.
They found that the deliberate uncertainty around Chinese censorship policies led to members censoring themselves and others—thereby strengthening the authoritarian regime’s control over the internet even when it was absent.
Deciphering the rules
Luo has been a member of the danmei fan community since she was a teenager.
