The twists and turns in the fate of “barefoot lawyer” Chen Guangcheng have held all in its thrall. Despite the vigilance of web censors, China’s netizens — particularly its social media users — have found inventive new ways of discussing the case. China’s web nannies have been on high alert ever since Chen fled his home in his native Shandong province. To bypass the censors, netizens concocted nicknames for Chen, including “Shawshank” (a reference to the film, The Shawshank Redemption) and “Sunglasses” (denoting Chen’s trademark black sunglasses). But within days, these search terms were also blocked . Tea Leaf Nation, a blog that “makes sense of China through social meda”, rounded up the memes and graphics that people used to express their support [...]

It has emerged that the Chinese government has closed 16 websites and detained six people for “fabricating or disseminating online rumours” in recent weeks. On 19 March, rumours began spreading on Chinese microblogs that claimed “military vehicles” had entered Beijing, and that the Chinese capital was the centre of a coup attempt. The rumours focus on internal political upheaval: the sacking of Bo Xilai, the popular former Chongqing Communist Party chief. Rumours began to spread after his deputy and police head Wang Lijun sought political asylum at the American Embassy. Xinhua reports that the closed websites included meizhou.net, xn528.com and cndy.com.cn. These small websites do not affect everyday life in China, but then on the morning of 31 March, users of the country’s most popular microblog, Sina [...]