Instead, web users are discussing the Canadian porn actor who dismembered a Chinese student.
While many Chinese social media users would probably like to discuss today's 23rd anniversary of the 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square, censors appear to be working hard to prevent even the most tangentially related keywords from appearing online. Banned words on Chinese social media today include the Mandarin for "candle," "massacre," "tank," and "never forget."
Sina Weibo censors are less inclined to redact foreign-language postings that won't reach a large readership. In English, "never forget" yields mild commentary on the Tiananmen Incident.
"I never forget what had happened today," wrote Weibo user Kenneth0_0v, based in Hong Kong, where an annual event at Victoria Park commemorates the massacre of countless protestors on June 4th, 1989.
Instead of Tiananmen, Weibo users are talking about the brutal murder of a Chinese study abroad student in Canada.
Last week, Interpol announced it would track down Canadian
adult film actor Luka Rocco Magnotta, charged with killing and dismembering Lin Jun,
a 33-year-old Chinese student at Concordia University in Montreal. Lin's hand
and foot were mailed to Canadian conservative political parties before Magnotta
fled the country. The two were reportedly romantically linked.