CDT presents a month-to-month collection of censored content material that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content material Archive.” Every month, we publish a abstract of content material blocked or deleted (usually yielding the message “404: content material not discovered”) from Chinese language platforms comparable to WeChat, Weibo, Douyin (TikTok’s counterpart within the Chinese language market), Xiaohongshu (RedNote), Bilibili, Zhihu, Douban, and others. Though this content material archived by CDT Chinese language editors represents solely a small fraction of the web content material that disappears every day from the Chinese language web, it offers worthwhile perception into which subjects are thought-about “delicate” over time by the Get together-state, our on-line world authorities, and platform censors. Our absolutely searchable Chinese language-language “404 Deleted Content material Archive,” at present accommodates 2,492 deleted articles, essays, and different items of content material. The entry for every deleted merchandise contains the creator/social media account title, the unique publishing platform, the subject material, the date of deletion, and extra info.
Beneath is an inventory of key subjects and a few associated deleted articles from CDT’s abstract of deleted content material for March 2026. Between March 1-31, CDT Chinese language added 36 new articles, primarily from WeChat, to the archive. (Word that the dates check with when an article was revealed on the CDT web site, not when it was deleted from Chinese language social-media platforms.) Matters focused for deletion in March included:
- The Warfare in Iran: Iranian politics, girls’s rights in Iran, the Iranian girls’s soccer crew, Chinese language pundits’ predictions concerning the conflict, a donation rip-off focusing on Chinese language social media customers, and so forth.
- March 8 Worldwide Girls’s Day and content material associated to feminism and ladies’s rights
- The legacy of entrance-exam guru and academic influencer Zhang Xuefeng, who died of a coronary heart assault on the age of 41
- March 15 “Shopper Day” in China
- Huge enthusiasm concerning the open-source AI agent “Open Claw”
- Tightening WeChat censorship and shared WeChat “404 experiences”
The Warfare in Iran
In March, CDT Chinese language editors archived a dozen articles about varied elements of the conflict in Iran, relating Iranian historical past and politics, the state of ladies’s rights in Iran, Chinese language state-media protection of the conflict, the killing of Iran’s supreme chief Ali Khamenei in U.S.-Israeli air strikes, and extra.
Fairly a couple of of the censored items criticized overly assured televised pronouncements by some Chinese language pundits who claimed that the U.S. wouldn’t go to conflict with Iran, or that if conflict did happen, that the U.S. and Israel can be routed in brief order. A bit by Mu Bai contains a lot of screenshots of such pundits, together with Fudan College’s Shen Yi and PLA commentator Li Li, making predictions that had been quickly overturned by real-life occasions. (One other publish about Li Li’s poor analytical observe report—“Her predictions are spot-on, so long as you reverse them”—was censored again in January.) A now-deleted article by WeChat account Unyielding Bamboo describes some wildly inaccurate analyses by home pundits and asks, “Why do folks even nonetheless consider them?” WeChat account Historical past Rhymes wrote about previous repression of dissent by Ali Khamenei and famous that there have been reportedly some road celebrations after he and a few members of his household had been killed in air assaults, though this was not reported by Chinese language state media.
“The U.S. and Israel Will Lose So Badly, They Gained’t Even Be Capable of Discover Their Personal Underwear” by Lao Xiao, WeChat Account Lao Xiao’s Random Musings
March 3, 2026
In early March, CDT English translated this WeChat publish parodying a few of the absurdly assured predictions concerning the conflict in Iran from Chinese language analysts. The final phrase within the Chinese language title is 内衣 nèiyī, a nickname for Khamenei punning on the ultimate characters of his Chinese language title, 哈梅内伊 Hāméinèiyī. Though the piece by no means names Khamenei immediately, in an obvious effort to evade key phrase scans, it was nonetheless deleted from the platform. A portion of the interpretation is excerpted beneath:
[A]s quickly as the primary shot was fired within the 2025 Israel-Iran battle, [Khamenei] dove right into a bunker 80 meters underground.
This “safehouse,” strengthened with strengthened concrete and Kevlar fiber, may reportedly face up to successful from a GBU-57 Huge Ordnance Penetrator, although it couldn’t defend him from accusations of cowardice from these left outdoors.
He and his spouse hid themselves away in a defensive set up 90-100 meters beneath floor, protected by a phalanx of Revolutionary Guards and a rigorously hidden subterranean entrance [….]
On the streets of Tehran, in the meantime, the peculiar folks lived in terror of financial sanctions and the flames of conflict. How had been they “sharing the lots’ destiny”? On high of every thing else, the authorities adopted a collection of harsh measures like web blackouts and security-force deployments starting in January this 12 months, arresting some 3,000 folks and sentencing a few of them to hanging, and establishing a draconian management regime comprising a “digital Iron Curtain + armed clearance.”
Bullshit is the non secular charlatans’ magic weapon: they attempt to spin their lies right into a cloak of authority within the hope that illusory worship will make the lots neglect their actual struggling. [Source]
Different censored content material concerning the conflict in Iran contains an article by WeChat blogger Xiang Dongliang concerning the widespread perception among the many Chinese language public that the U.S. was motivated by a seize for Iranian oil, and a bit from blogger Mu Bai concerning the proliferation of scams soliciting donations from Chinese language netizens to “assist Iran.” Mu Bai notes that the Iranian Embassy in China launched an official assertion warning in opposition to these scams, though it was worded in a really roundabout means.
March 8 Worldwide Girls’s Day and censorship of content material associated to feminism and ladies’s rights
Round March 8 Worldwide Girls’s Day, a number of deleted posts had been extremely essential of constraints on girls’s rights underneath the Iranian theocracy, and two different posts highlighted information about members of the Iranian nationwide girls’s soccer crew who had sought asylum in Australia after their refusal to sing the Iranian nationwide anthem at an abroad match led to them being labeled “wartime traitors” by Iranian state tv. (5 of the seven who sought asylum later withdrew their claims and returned to Iran.)
Along with the standard uptick in deleted content material round March 8 Worldwide Girls’s Day, there was additionally a spate of bans on the eve of March 8 that struck WeChat public accounts targeted on feminism, girls’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, combatting human trafficking, and selling psychological well being, an indication of the persevering with stigmatization and silencing of debate about these points. At about the identical time, a comic often called Xiao Pa (full title Paziliyaer Paerhati) had her Weibo account suspended for posting this joke: “I’ve been bedridden for 2 days with a excessive fever. Abruptly it hit me that if I had a husband and children, I’d be clinging to the wall, dragging myself away from bed simply to cook dinner for them.” The suspension drew outrage from Weibo customers, a lot of whom stated they associated to the joke, and that it merely mirrored the gender imbalance of family chores frequent in lots of households. “What did she write?” learn one Weibo remark, which was later deleted by platform censors. “Let me see … Oh, she simply wrote the reality.”
CDT editors additionally archived a farewell letter from WeChat blogger Ai Daxun, discussing the closure of her WeChat account upfront of Girls’s Day and thanking her readers for his or her assist. Ai mentions that she is probably going probably the most average of the social-affairs commentators many readers observe, and that regardless of her finest efforts, even she was unable to keep away from the crimson strains of censorship:
With Girls’s Day approaching, I felt that I ought to publish extra, and had lots of content material able to go, however that is such a delicate time period, I used to be afraid that I’d go unsuitable it doesn’t matter what I revealed.
My considerations weren’t unfounded. Final 12 months simply earlier than Girls’s Day, I attempted to prepare an offline book-club assembly in Guangdong, however simply two nights earlier than the occasion, I acquired phrase that it was canceled. I haven’t tried to prepare any offline occasions since then.
[…] A short time later, I checked the backend once more, and realized that […] my account was already gone.
Because it seems, the reason for my account ban was a law-related article I’d revealed final July concerning the Wuhan College Library [sexual harassment] incident.
[…] Seven months after the very fact, my account was “bombed” due to that article. I discover it fairly baffling, as a result of I’ve had many different articles deleted previously. Why would they resolve to ban me now, over an article that wasn’t even deleted on the time?
[…] At this juncture, I need to level out that I is likely to be probably the most average of the accounts you observe which might be nonetheless monitoring societal occasions. Typically I even keep away from expressing my opinions outright, and confine myself to presenting solely what I take into account to be essential proof. Regardless of this, my account was nonetheless shut down. My fixed compromises and abundance of warning proved to be futile within the face of ever-encroaching crimson strains. [Source]
The legacy of controversial entrance-exam guru and academic influencer Zhang Xuefeng
One other matter focused for censorship in March was the legacy of academic influencer Zhang Xuefeng, who died of a coronary heart assault on the age of 41. Big crowds thronged the streets close to a funeral residence in Suzhou to pay tribute to the “entrance examination guru” who had suggested so many younger folks and their mother and father—significantly these from rural and working-class backgrounds—on the trail to educational and profession success.
Chinese language editors archived 14 articles, a minimum of 4 of which had been deleted from WeChat, about Zhang’s unabashedly “utilitarian” academic philosophy and his difficult legacy. One censored article, by blogger Lao Xiao, describes Zhang as a form of “religious pacifier” and means that college students is likely to be higher off with out his academic bromides. “When the one legitimate perception is that ‘selecting the best main equals a steady future,’ schooling is reworked from a nurturing soil to an ‘all-or-nothing’ gamble. Forcing kids to desert humanities and social sciences and dive headfirst into fields they don’t relate to might deprive them of alternatives to outline themselves, unleash their inventive potential, and higher perceive the world.”
A deleted piece by current-affairs blogger Wei Chunliang (“Zhang Xuefeng, You Have Develop into the Reminiscence of a Technology”) argues that if an individual’s worth is measured by what number of others they helped throughout their lifetime, then Zhang actually deserves some recognition and gratitude:
[W]hether you favored him or not, it’s a must to admit that when it got here to bridging the data hole, Zhang Xuefeng did extra, and did it higher, than the overwhelming majority of educators on the market—particularly for teenagers dwelling out within the sticks or finding out at second-rate excessive colleges.
[…] They had been like frogs trapped on the backside of a nicely, capable of glimpse solely a tiny patch of the sky above.
A very powerful factor Zhang Xuefeng did was to decrease a rope into that nicely, providing them a means out.
He didn’t mince phrases. Throughout one in all his livestreams, he instructed a dad or mum: “If that had been my child and he insisted on finding out journalism, I’d knock him mindless and signal him up for one thing else!”
He had no qualms about shattering illusions: “Until your loved ones’s loaded, that isn’t the main for you.”
Such recommendation appears harsh, even merciless.
However the factor is: he was telling the reality. [Source]
A deleted article from WeChat account Yaya’s Room (“Relaxation in Peace, Instructor Zhang Xuefeng, and Might Schoolgirls By no means Must Take heed to Your Paternalistic Lecturing Once more”) affords a distinct perspective, specializing in the customarily stark hole between Zhang’s recommendation to female and male college students:
What I discover most objectionable is Zhang Xuefeng’s view on gender. That is primarily mirrored in his academic recommendation to feminine college students, which regularly contains the phrase: “Discover a boyfriend.” In brief, no matter whether or not or not a woman is in search of relationship recommendation, Zhang Xuefeng will “provide his two cents” with regards to love and marriage—the gist of which is to inform her to “discover a boyfriend” and “observe him wherever he goes.” Zhang by no means offers this sort of recommendation to male college students.
As is abundantly clear, Zhang Xuefeng’s recommendation to many younger girls is that you simply don’t must work onerous to develop your profession, you simply must discover a man who’s prepared to assist you. In his eyes, girls’s roles inside the household are as wives and moms, and he hopes that ladies will internalize these roles and plan their lives accordingly. [Source]
March 15 “Shopper Day” in China
The annual March 15 “Shopper Day” in China, and its usually self-congratulatory televised gala element, has lengthy been accused of focusing on low-hanging fruit, ignoring China’s obvious lack of consumer-product oversight, and naming and shaming solely probably the most egregious offenders. This 12 months, a censored article by WeChat blogger and current-affairs commentator Wei Chunliang criticized the performative nature of the March 15 televised gala. A translated excerpt of Wei’s article seems beneath.
“The Performative Annual 315 Gala: Who Are They Fooling?” by Wei Chunliang, WeChat account Liang Jian
March 16, 2026
The annual 315 Gala appears much less about proving how terrible product high quality is than about proving how “inured” we’ve turn out to be to those varied toxins.
[…] Annually after March fifteenth, do the related authorities observe up on these circumstances? And if that’s the case, how do they deal with them? Are the businesses concerned given the punishment they deserve? Are the issues addressed and corrected? It appears that only a few media shops are eager about doing follow-up reporting on this.
This centralized command efficiency, this campaign-style performative enforcement is however a one-off, a fleeting second that’s all fanfare and spectacle.
That stated, why do native authorities solely take note of meals questions of safety, product high quality issues, and regulatory violations after the media studies seem? Isn’t there presupposed to be routine oversight and enforcement all 12 months spherical?
As one web person put it: “The largest drawback with the 315 Gala is that it turns authorities inaction and insufficient supervision right into a celebratory banquet.” [Chinese]
The FOMO-driven craze for putting in open-source AI agent Open Claw
In March, China skilled a nationwide craze for putting in Open Claw, an open-source AI agent able to autonomously controlling a pc, shopping the net, managing recordsdata, dealing with emails, and far more. Many on-line Chinese language articles mentioned the profitable marketplace for these installs, which gave the impression to be pushed, a minimum of partly, by a worry of lacking out on the newest AI instrument and falling behind one’s colleagues, classmates, or opponents. One such article, “FOMO, Frenzy, and Uninstalling: An Open-Claw ‘Residence Set up’ Employee Talks In regards to the Newest Craze,” from WeChat account True Story Venture, discusses the profitable gig financial system that appeared in a single day, providing residence installations of the sought-after instrument. The creator additionally notes that earlier than lengthy, studies of safety incidents and warnings from Chinese language enterprise and our on-line world authorities prompted many customers to uninstall Open Claw, opening up one other income stream for home-installers, a few of whom had been charging 499 yuan ($73 U.S.) to put in it, and 299 yuan ($44) to take away it.
Tightening WeChat censorship and WeChat “404 experiences”
On March 25, WeChat introduced that for the reason that starting of the 12 months, it had completely banned 1,209 accounts and sanctioned greater than 60,000 accounts for varied violations. Alongside this tightening platform censorship, many WeChat bloggers have revealed “404 expertise” articles explaining to their readers why sure of their posts had been blocked or deleted, or giving recommendation to different WeChat customers about the right way to keep away from falling afoul of platform censors. (See earlier CDT translations a couple of publish that acquired the hammer as a result of an unruly feedback part; a “constructive power” publish about power costs that was too “well timed” for its personal good; and a publish that acquired scrubbed for quoting official authorities statistics concerning the birthrate.) One notable “404 expertise” publish that was archived by CDT Chinese language editors in March is a unprecedented public attraction from legal- and social-affairs blogger Li Yuchen, who has had over 40 WeChat official accounts closed over time as a result of their unvarnished protection of such subjects as judicial injustice and the abuse of energy. Within the archived publish, Li asks if anybody is likely to be prepared to danger “lending” their WeChat accounts in order that Li can proceed publishing and advocating for justice, accountability, and equity.
