China’s Twitter-like microblogging service Weibo has blocked and deleted posts referring to British comedian John Oliver after he slammed the country’s human rights record and mocked President Xi Jinping on his show, ‘Last Week Tonight’.
In a 20-minute segment aired on HBO last Sunday, Mr. Oliver criticised China's moves to end presidential term limits and enshrine “Xi Jinping Thought” in its Constitution, saying Mr. Xi’s consolidation of power was driven by a “leadership cult”.
Anti-graft crackdown
Mr. Oliver also mocked China’s “Belt and Road” initiative, its ongoing crackdown on corruption, and moves to censor online images of the cartoon bear Winnie the Pooh, said to resemble Mr. Xi.
Attempts to post Oliver’s English name or the name of his show prompted error messages about “information that violated related laws and regulations”. The Chinese translation of his name does not appear to have been censored.
“For my whole life, I won’t be able to see John Oliver enter China’s market after this episode,” one Weibo user wrote on Thursday.
Removal of fan page
Last year, Weibo removed a Chinese-language fan page of Mr. Oliver’s show after the satirist interviewed the Dalai Lama, according to a previous moderator of the fan-page. The fan page had a following of around 3,000 users at the time, said the moderator, who declined to be identified.
“John Oliver must have seen this coming, but I don’t think it really matters. China does not generate any revenue for HBO,” said a fan who used to help translate content for the show into Chinese. He, too, sought anonymity.
