New Semi-Censorship

We are currently monitoring more than 12,000 keywords on Sina Weibo, out of which around 2500 are currently blocked. When searching for any of those blocked keywords, you get the following message:

根据相关法律法规和政策，“[the blocked keyword]”搜索结果未予显示。

This translates into:

According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, search results for [the blocked keyword] can not be displayed.

These keywords generate no search results at all. Recently, however, a new form of self-censorship has emerged in which some results are returned but not all (big thanks to Jason Ng at BlockedOnWeibo for letting us know). Take, for example, {{weibo:八九纪念}} ("remember 89") and {{weibo:河蟹}} ("river crab", used instead of 和谐 which means "harmony" and is used to refer to censorship). These had been fully blocked since we started monitoring them in May this year. However, sometime in September, searching for either of the two started returning some results, followed by this new message:

 根据相关法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示。

which translates into:

According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, some of the search results for [the blocked keyword] can not be displayed.

An even more interesting example is {{weibo:民泽江}}. It used to be fully blocked, but in September was partially unblocked (displaying the message quoted above). Then, at least as of October 1, it has been fully unblocked.

This new semi-censorship level resembles the one practiced by Baidu, which admits to self-censoring but still returns selected results.

Blocked and Unblocked

The following keywords were not blocked prior to September, 2012, but have been blocked since that month and onwards.
  1. {{weibo:三表哥}}
  2. {{weibo:克强}}
  3. {{weibo:张培莉}}
  4. {{weibo:砸毁警车}}
  5. {{weibo:自焚}}

And these keywords were all blocked before September, but are not blocked anymore:

  1. {{weibo:3月20日}}
  2. {{weibo:4月3日}}
  3. {{weibo:5人被刑拘}}
  4. {{weibo:8x8}}
  5. {{weibo:BJ日报}}
  6. {{weibo:fang binxing}}
  7. {{weibo:guangcheng}}
  8. {{weibo:q=cache}}
  9. {{weibo:qd}}
  10. {{weibo:xing 爱}}
  11. {{weibo:xing 爱}}
  12. {{weibo:youtube}}
  13. {{weibo:九八}}
  14. {{weibo:二胡}}
  15. {{weibo:互联网信息办公室}}
  16. {{weibo:五套 功法}}
  17. {{weibo:倪玉兰}}
  18. {{weibo:八九纪念}}
  19. {{weibo:公告}}
  20. {{weibo:冤案}}
  21. {{weibo:加兹温}}
  22. {{weibo:勿忘}}
  23. {{weibo:北戴河会议}}
  24. {{weibo:吃人}}
  25. {{weibo:吃少年}}
  26. {{weibo:合肥 法院}}
  27. {{weibo:国家 军队}}
  28. {{weibo:大使馆}}
  29. {{weibo:大力王}}
  30. {{weibo:大腿肉}}
  31. {{weibo:孤立事件}}
  32. {{weibo:审理}}
  33. {{weibo:尼尔伍德}}
  34. {{weibo:师傅 天线}}
  35. {{weibo:康 宝宝}}
  36. {{weibo:开来}}
  37. {{weibo:抗议}}
  38. {{weibo:护士长}}
  39. {{weibo:抵制日货}}
  40. {{weibo:无修正}}
  41. {{weibo:晚自习后}}
  42. {{weibo:暴露}}
  43. {{weibo:替身}}
  44. {{weibo:杀人狂}}
  45. {{weibo:正无}}
  46. {{weibo:毒杀}}
  47. {{weibo:民泽江}}
  48. {{weibo:江绵恒}}
  49. {{weibo:法广}}
  50. {{weibo:熙来}}
  51. {{weibo:立军}}
  52. {{weibo:立案}}
  53. {{weibo:纪委}}
  54. {{weibo:纳米比亚}}
  55. {{weibo:经济观察报 查封}}
  56. {{weibo:美 大使}}
  57. {{weibo:腌肉}}
  58. {{weibo:自行离开}}
  59. {{weibo:薄}}
  60. {{weibo:藏 里}}
  61. {{weibo:讲真相}}
  62. {{weibo:起东}}
  63. {{weibo:连环失踪案}}
  64. {{weibo:邪恶的党}}
  65. {{weibo:阿炳}}
  66. {{weibo:非法献花}}
  67. {{weibo:韩耀}}
  68. {{weibo:领馆}}
  69. {{weibo:食人魔}}
  70. {{weibo:马力宏}}
  71. {{weibo:驻华大使馆}}
  72. {{weibo:骆 信访办}}
  73. {{weibo:骆家辉 信访办}}
  74. {{weibo:高干子弟}}
  75. {{weibo:高瞻}}
  76. {{weibo:鸵鸟肉}}
  77. {{weibo:黄奇帆}}
  78. {{weibo:（梅）宁华}}