cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/35955744

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Hundreds of pages of classified documents leaked to the ABC have offered an unprecedented glimpse into China’s infamous censorship regime.

It has grown faster, smarter and increasingly invisible, quietly erasing the memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre from public view.

Thirty-six years on, Beijing still has not disclosed the official death toll of the bloody crackdown on a pro-democracy gathering on June 4, when more than 1 million protesters were in the square.

Historians estimate that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) killed anywhere from 200 to several thousand people that day.

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More than 230 pages of censorship instructions prepared by Chinese social media platforms were shared by industry insiders with the ABC.

They were intended to be circulated among multi-channel networks or MCNs — companies that manage the accounts of content creators across multiple social and video platforms like Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

The files reveal deep anxiety among Chinese authorities about the spread of any reference to the most violently suppressed pro-democracy movement in the country’s history.

The documents instruct MCNs to remove any content that depicts state violence and include compilations of text, images and video content for reference.

The reference material includes graphic scenes of the People’s Liberation Army opening fire on civilians, while others say students attacked the soldiers.

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The leaked documents also shed light on the lives of censors, who work under close oversight from the Cyberspace Administration.

All censors are required to pass multiple exams to ensure they are vigilant and can respond swiftly to remove potentially risky content — a crucial safeguard to prevent platforms from being suspended or shut down by authorities.

Everything visible online needs to be checked: videos, images, captions, live streams, comments and text.

Algorithms are trained to detect visual cues, while human censors are on alert for coded language, disguised symbols and unusual emoji combinations that may signal dissent.

Documents also show censors must meet strict productivity targets — some are expected to review hundreds of posts per hour.

Their behaviour, accuracy and speed are tracked by internal monitoring software. Mistakes can result in formal warnings or termination.

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[Censors] said their colleagues suffered from burnout, depression and anxiety due to constant exposure to disturbing, violent or politically sensitive content.

One said working as a censor was like “reliving the darkest pages of history every day, while being watched by software that records every keystroke”.

They are normally paid with a modest salary — often less than $1,500 a month — though the psychological toll is severe.

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In some cases, platforms in China [such as Douyin which is available only in China] ]allow low-risk content to remain online — but under a shadow ban.

This means the content is visible to the user who posted it and a limited pool of users.

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[One expert] warns that the implications of AI censorship extend beyond China.

“If misleading data continues to flow outward, it could influence the AI models the rest of the world relies on,” he said.

“We need to think hard about how to maintain databases that are neutral, uncensored and accurate — because if the data is fake, the future will be fake too.”

Despite China’s increasing use of AI to automate censorship, [one expert says] Chinese people’s intelligence will continue to outsmart the technology.

While he worries future generations may struggle to access truthful information, he believes people will find new ways to express dissent — even under an airtight system.

“After working as a censor for years, I found human creativity can still crush AI censors many times over,” he said.

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