Censorship in China
China is the largest surviving authoritarian regime worldwide. From the founding of the current Chinese regime to the present day (2025), the regime has directly or indirectly caused the death of at least 16 million Chinese civilians during peacetime.
The Chinese government continues to deny or minimize its wrongdoing in all humanitarian tragedies under its rule. To prevent the circulation of potentially embarrassing information concerning the regime, China has constructed the world’s most sophisticated censorship machine, consisting of a firewall filtering all international internet traffic, a domestic censorship team more than 2 million people strong, and a large network of secret police specializing in surveillance, harassment, detention, interrogation, and intimidation of dissidents.
Below are some credible sources on Chinese censorship.
The Great Firewall（防火长城）
China finds blocking international websites not submitting to its censorship essential to the regime's reputation.
A 101 on China's modern Greatwall - the Great Firewall:
How China banned Facebook (and Instagram, X/Twitter, Whatsapp, Snapchat, ...):
ABC NewsHow China gradually blocked almost all international news websites, including the BBC, the New York Times, Washington Post, the Guardian, Sky News, and many more:
Tania Branigan
Domestic Censorship Team (网络审查大军）
What do University graduates, prisoners, and freelancing aunties have in common?
All of them may be working on Chinese domestic censorship.
When a Chinese government newspaper accidentally self-incriminated the CCP on its extensive and expensive oppression of freedom of speech:
BBC News
When Georgetown University’s Ryan Fedasiuk put a cost figure to the Chinese censorship apparatus:
Ryan Fedasiuk
When China codified prison sentences for those challenging the censorship:
Jonathan Kaiman
Secret Police (国保,国安)
China's modern Gestapo.
How do Chinese secret police deal with dissidents?
Search, detain, imprison, and throw them into mental asylums, where they can be injected with sedatives:
BBC News 中文
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