Reports on social media platform Reddit being censored in China have prompted anger and protests among the Chinese users of the website.
For more than 90 days now, Reddit users in China have not been able to use it due to censorship.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco-based discussion website Reddit has reportedly received a massive investment valued at around $150 million to $300 million from the China-based censorship powerhouse and tech giant, Tencent.
And for the Chinese users, this news was enough to know the reason behind the ban!
Tencent is a well-known Chinese online giant that has been playing an important yet ambiguous role in China’s censorship regime.
The investment in Reddit came as part of the deal to let Reddit block the website in China while they are helping the Silicon Valley company to raise its value and consolidate its position in a competitive market.
In the meantime, users on Reddit protested the platform’s decision to accept the investment and and have flooded Reddit’s feed with posts of banned photos in China.
Many of the posts were photos from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests that remain taboo in China.
The protests, also known as the June Fourth Incident, were mainly triggered by students-led movements against a backdrop of rapid economic development and social changes taking place in China at that time.
The protests that were forcibly suppressed by authorities left massive numbers of civilians killed. Number of deaths was estimated to be near or above 10,000 by the Chinese government.
The social media uprising, as some referred to, was extended to other social media platforms including Twitter.
Some users remembered the Chinese authorities decision to ban Winnie the Pooh, after the fictional character was compared to the Chinese president, Xi Jinping in 2018.
The funny joke that started online ended with banning the release of the latest film of Winnie the Pooh in the country.
On the other hand, many users shared photos to remind Reddit of the conflicts that China are indulged in with other nations demanding their independence and freedom from China.
The conflict between China and Taiwan was one of them.
Other photos included Tibetan protesters who are being hit and arrested by the Chinese authorities as they have been demanding their freedom for decades now.
Also, Chinese authorities have been launching a massive crackdown on religions, including Buddhism and Islam, so Reddit users went to post photos of a Buddhist monk who was violently hit and arrested by the Chinese forces and other photos of the concentration camps where the ethnic Muslim Uighur minority are being arrested and forced to denounce their religion.
