The Chinese government might be releasing videos to reassure the world that Peng Shuai is alive and well, but her presence on the country's social media has been scrubbed clean
Andy Brownbill/AP
- Peng, who accused a prime Chinese language official of sexual assault this month, went lacking for 3 weeks.
- Chinese language state media retailers have continued to launch photographs and movies of Peng to show she is alive and nicely.
- Nevertheless, mentions of Peng have been scrubbed clear from social media platform Weibo, China's model of Twitter.
Even whereas Chinese language state media retailers continue to share footage of tennis star Peng Shuai in a bid to show that she is alive and nicely, the nation's main social media platform stays devoid of content material associated to her.
Peng vanished for three weeks after making a submit on November 2 on the Chinese language social media website Weibo, the nation's model of Twitter. The now-deleted submit accused the nation's former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli of sexually assaulting her in 2019.
Insider ran a search of Peng's identify on Weibo that yielded solely two outcomes from this yr, one featuring a tennis training camp in September — which had the feedback part locked. The opposite seen submit containing Peng's identify was one from the French embassy in China calling for transparency in Peng's case. That submit noticed lots of of feedback from indignant Chinese language net customers telling the French to "thoughts their very own enterprise" and never intrude in China's home points.
Peng's personal Weibo account, akin to a weblog, had the feedback part locked on each publish. The newest entry out there was an automatic posting saying her birthday this previous January.
Peng is taken into account one of many nation's most well-known athletes, however solely two clips have been out there on the platform — one from a tennis match in 2020, and an old video from a match at Wimbledon.
Following Peng's disappearance, an unverified email claiming to be from the lacking athlete was revealed on state media outlet CGTN. However the e mail prompted extra concern over Peng's welfare, with President Joe Biden, Naomi Osaka, and Serena Williams becoming a member of the refrain of voices to name for proof of Peng's security.
Nevertheless, content material and dialogue about Peng seem to nonetheless be largely absent on Weibo. It's unclear if the platform is actively censoring content material about Peng. Weibo didn't instantly reply to a request for remark from Insider.
This week, a reporter from China's state media shared what he claimed to be current snapshots of Peng that showed her posing with a cat and stuffed animals. An influential state-media editor, Hu Xijin of the International Occasions, later shared videos of Peng supposedly having dinner with her coach, the place they repeat the date a number of occasions in the identical clip. Individually, the Worldwide Olympic Committee stated on Sunday that it had made contact with Peng via video call and that she seemed to be "relaxed."
The Ladies's Tennis Affiliation continues to be pushing for verifiable proof of Peng's safety.
Other instances of high-profile disappearances have been documented in China. Alibaba founder Jack Ma dropped off the radar for three months after making a controversial speech critiquing China's monetary system.
In Ma's case, he stopped posting on Weibo abruptly and didn't make public appearances. Bloomberg reported that Weibo eliminated Ma's identify from the platform's prime subjects (just like Twitter's trending subjects), however his identify was not censored on the platform.
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