Peng Shuai's name disappears from the Chinese internet: talking encrypted in China

Tennis player Peng Shuai during a match in Paris, in 2018. Eric Feferberg AFP / Archivos

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After her message published in early November on social networks in which she accused a former Chinese vice premier of a forced relationship, it is now Peng Shuai's name that has disappeared from the country's internet.

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The publication

, in which the tennis player implicated a former Chinese leader in a sex scandal, was deleted after just 30 minutes.

Today, it is the name of Peng Shuai that cannot be found on Chinese social networks.

On Weibo, the local equivalent of twitter, Internet users are therefore forced to be creative to evoke the former world number 1 in doubles.

Very quickly, it is therefore with the initials of the player: "PS" that Internet users have mentioned the case, but the censorship quickly intervened.

Internet users then use

which means " 

" in Mandarin to bypass the censors.

Other users use the expression “ 

 ” which means to be interested in high-profile news.

Faced with increased surveillance on the Chinese Internet, Internet users have developed a whole parallel language.

In 2018, when the #MeToo wave broke in China, words were released on the web and testimonies of sexual assault multiplied before, again, censorship blocked discussions.

But Internet users still competed in ingenuity to tackle these subjects on the web.

To get around the censorship, the keyword

has become popular because in Mandarin, rice is pronounced "me" and rabbit "too".

► Also to listen: Decryption - Peng Shuai case: forced disappearances in China, a well-established system?

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