68 things you cannot say on China's internet

Song Jie, a writer in central China, knows what she can and cannot write in the romance novels she publishes online. Words that describe explicit sexual acts are out, of course. Even euphemisms like “behind” or “bottom” can trigger censorship by software filters or a website’s employees.

Other prohibitions inside China’s Great Firewall, the country’s system of internet filters and controls, are trickier to navigate, in part because they are subjective and even contradictory. And there are more and more of them. In a directive circulated this summer, the state-controlled association that polices China’s fast-growing digital media sector set out 68 categories of material that should be censored.

The guidelines ban material that depicts excessive drinking or gambling; that sensationalises “bizarre or grotesque” criminal cases; that ridicules China’s historical revolutionary leaders, or current members of the army, police or judiciary; or that “publicises the luxury life.”  “Detailed” plots involving prostitution and rape are also forbidden. So are displays of “unhealthy marital values,” which the guidelines catalog as affairs, one-night stands and partner swapping.

Despite the efforts of censors, the internet has long been the most freewheeling of China’s mass media, a platform where authors and artists  could reach audiences largely free of the Propaganda Department’s traditional controls on broadcasting and publishing.

But the new restrictions — which expanded and updated a set of prohibitions issued five years ago — reflect an ambitious effort by President Xi Jinping’s government to impose discipline and rein in the web.

 ©2017 The New York Times News Service