A mountain of evidence has surfaced that Chinese authorities played down the dangers of the coronavirus early in the first months as the world became aware of it.
Early in the coronavirus outbreak, Chinese authorities clamped down on information to make the virus look less severe, and the government more capable, thousands of secret government directives and other documents reviewed by @nytimes and @propublica show. https://t.co/sDSiy2p5Np
— The New York Times (@nytimes) December 19, 2020
Much of the censorship by the Chinese government in those days (February of 2020) centered around Dr. Li Wenliang, a medical doctor in Wuhan who posted a harrowing series of videos online talking about a dangerous new viral outbreak.
Li was accused of spreading rumours by the police , but he eventually would die of the novel coronavirus himself.
In response, China's censoring authorities cracked down heavily on information that was rapidly spreading at that point.
They issued gag orders nationwide, prohibiting the media from alerting the public about Dr. Li's death, and they implemented a policy of gradual scrubbing of his name from that which had been published previously.
Below is an excerpt from the New York Times article, where they published the exact directives communicated by the CCP at the time:
TO NEWS WEBSITES AND SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:
"… do not use push notifications, do not post commentary, do not stir up speculation. Safely control the fervor in online discussions, do not create hashtags, gradually remove from trending topics, strictly control harmful information."
TO LOCAL PROPAGANDA WORKERS:
"We must recognize with clear mind the butterfly effect, broken windows effect and snowball effect triggered by this event, and the unprecedented challenge that it has posed to our online opinion management and control work. All Cyberspace Administration bureaus must pay heightened attention to online opinion, and resolutely control anything that seriously damages party and government credibility and attacks the political system …"
According to the same article, there were thousands of directives such as the two above which were disseminated to the appropriate people by authorities in China in order to hide the truth from the public.
These leaks clearly show the scope and power of Chinese censors in the year 2020.
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