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Missing Accounts

Feminist and LGBT+ accounts on
Chinese social media have been made disappear.

By Ryan Li

at Wang* and some other “Other users could not view our cusing on feminism and gender issues
members of Catch-Up Sisters, account page …we were made invis- in mainland China. Their discussion
Ca women rights concern group ible (in the cyber world),” Wang says on Weibo covered women reproduc-
in China, found that they were banned in an online interview. tive rights, career development and
from reposting feeds on their Weibo Their Weibo account cannot be Chinese women’s living conditions in
account (@CatchUp性别公正姐妹) searched by other users from then on. rural areas.
on September 14. A notice saying “the account cannot
Their official account had around be viewed because of complaints on Unclear Reason
56,000 followers on Weibo, one of violating Weibo’s rules” appears when Wang received a phone call from
China’s biggest social media plat- attempts are made to look for their ac- Weibo on her mobile number that was
forms, by the time it was suddenly count. connected to their account, telling her
suspended. Catch Up Sisters has long been fo- to “avoid posting sensitive contents”

“

We were very angry after the first two suspensions, but we

are rather calm this time. We somehow get used to it.

”