How China censored a tennis star

Shortly after Peng Shuai, one of China's most popular tennis players, levelled allegations of sexual assault against a former senior politician on social-media site Weibo, her personal feed was censored. That was on 2 November, and since then concern over her well-being and whereabouts have persisted. We've looked at the timeline of events to understand the online censorship techniques used against Ms Peng. What has happened to Ms Peng's posts? She published a post on Weibo on 2 November alleging she had been forced into sexual relations with Zhang Gaoli, a former Chinese vice-premier. That post disappeared quickly - probably within the hour. Using the Wayback Machine internet tool - which allows you to scroll back in time online - we can see that by the end of that day there was no trace of the post. We then looked at Ms Peng's timeline and found that six more posts had gone, and she herself has not posted on Weibo since 2 November. This isn't the first time a high-profile athlete has been censored. Last year, outspoken former China international footballer Hao Haidong was also censored on the internet, along with his wife, Ye Zhaoying, a retired badminton player, after he openly called for the removal of China's ruling Communist Party. Weibo users, just like those on Twitter, can normally post comments in reply to posts. However, comments on Ms Peng's own timeline have been blocked - making it impossible for her followers (more than half a million of them) to engage in a conversation. It also appears that certain specific search terms were temporarily blocked - so if a user typed Ms Peng's name, for example, results were restricted. The only search result for her name that shows up on Weibo is a post from the French Embassy in Beijing on 22 November, expressing concern about the lack of information on Ms Peng. People were able to comment on this, but only selected comments actually appeared. There is some other content relating to Peng Shuai currently available on Weibo - but it's just video clips from her old tennis matches. The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) has decided to suspend all tournaments in China, including Hong Kong, amid concern that Ms Peng "is not allowed to communicate freely" and seems to have been "pressured to contradict her allegation of sexual assault". Comments on the WTA's two most recent posts on Weibo are currently blocked, although its account is still available. In addition, Weibo posts by other users referring to Ms Peng have been removed. On 3 November, Chinese tennis commentator, Ouyang Wensheng, wrote: "Hope you are safe" and "How desperate and helpless she must have been". Both these posts have been taken down. To navigate around the censors, some have come up with creative solutions. Instead of referring to Zhang Gaoli directly, Weibo users have referred to him by similar names, or names that have the same initials in Chinese. However, the authorities are wise to this and posts that try to evade the censors in this way have also been quickly taken down. So far, mainstream state media have been steering clear of the story. Search engine Baidu shows only state media reporting on Zhang Gaoli. And if you search for "Peng Shuai", the only results that show up are from 2020 and earlier. Other social-media sites, such as Douyin (Chinese TikTok) and popular video-sharing platforms Kuaishou and Bilibili, also have limited search access for sensitive terms relating to the story. On question-and-answer website Zhihu, no results appear when the name "Peng Shuai" is entered. However, when "Zhang Gaoli" is searched for, there are posts portraying him as a heroic leader. What's the reaction to her latest appearances? Last month, Ms Peng appeared in a video chat with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) President, Thomas Bach. The IOC says she has taken part in second call more recently, that it will "stay in regular touch" with her and "have a personal meeting in January".