New legislation will enable the Government to issue takedown notices and create internet filters for content deemed objectionable by the Chief Censor, with an eye towards terrorist and violent extremist content.

Select Government agencies - including the police - will be able to "issue a takedown notice relating to a particular online publication to an online content host if "the content is objectionable or if the person "believes, on reasonable grounds, that the online publication is objectionable".

For the purposes of this measure, "online content hosts" refers to companies "both in New Zealand and overseas that provide services to the public".

This sort of accidental filtering has gained a name in computer science: the Scunthorpe problem, so-called because of the Lincolnshire town’s regular issues with such censorship.

Twitter declined to comment on the filtering. The company’s opaque trending algorithms have regularly led to accusations of interference, as users conclude that the absence of a particular topic is a sign of malicious intent, but the answer is rarely as straightforward as it is in this case.

The new rules apply to all websites, whether large or small. But there are concerns that only internet giants such as Facebook and Google actually have the resources to remove content as quickly as required.

"Except the big companies, nobody can afford to have a 24/7 watch to remove the content when requested," a spokesman for the group said. "Hence, they will have to rely on censorship before receiving a request from the police."

A person who manages a Douyin account promoting Cantonese culture to its 230,000 followers said he had received two bans and multiple warnings for using Cantonese. Clearly, using Mandarin instead of Cantonese would nullify the whole point of the account.

There are around 68 million native speakers of Cantonese -- more than most languages around the world -- notably in Hong Kong. Moreover, Cantonese is not merely a "dialect" of Mandarin, as Douyin implies when it talks of "languages and dialects": they are quite separate languages that derive independently from Middle Chinese.

The report also found that WeChat, owned by Chinese firm Tencent, blocked more words as the outbreak grew.

WeChat was found to have censored 132 keyword combinations between 1 - 31 January. As the outbreak continued, WeChat censored 384 new keywords between 1 - 15 February.

The censorship is particularly damaging because WeChat is such a central part of many people's lives in China - it is, in effect, WhatsApp, Facebook, Apple Pay and more, rolled into one.

Disney has decided to remove a kissing scene from its $200million live-action adaptation of Mulan after their Chinese executives thought it was inappropriate for their audiences, it has been revealed.

The upcoming remake has sparked a series of controversies before its scheduled release in March this year.

Many called for a boycott after the leading actress, Liu Yifei, voiced support for authorities’ crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

Just hours after a secret meeting with Silicon Valley tech giants to discuss censorship of "misinformation" surrounding coronavirus, and just days before Julian Assange's extradition hearings are set to continue, Kristin Hrafnsson - a WikiLeaks' journalist - reports that the WikiLeaks' Twitter account has been locked-down...

As The Washington Examiner noted as far back at 2016, Twitter lit up in late July with allegations that it tried to suppress news that secret-leaking website Wikileaks exposed thousands of emails obtained from the servers of the Democratic National Committee.

Ms Evans' group has collected a list of more than 1,300 performers who claim that their accounts have been deleted by Instagram's content moderators for violations of the site's community standards, despite not showing any nudity or sex.

In late 2018, adult performers say, an individual or a number of individuals started a co-ordinated campaign to report accounts to social media platforms, with the clear intent of having them removed.

"There is also a culture in Silicon Valley that tends to infantilise the audience," he says. "Facebook is launching a dating service called Crushes, while having strict rules about sexual chat, even between consensual adults and [even when it is] non-commercial."

Since Apple's latest U-turn came after criticism from state media, it's sparked accusations that the company is capitulating to the Chinese government, which has recently become a hot topic. But if that’s the case, it won’t be the first time Apple has done it. Here are six times Apple has given in to government demands in China.

So in August 2017, Apple publicly said it complied with requests to remove VPN apps from China’s iOS App Store ahead of the Communist Party’s National Congress.

Earlier that year, Apple also removed The New York Times from China’s iOS App Store, citing “violation of local regulations.”

In 2016, Apple shut down its iBooks Store and iTunes Movies services in mainland China, just six months after they entered the market. The reason? As a result of the country’s strict content controls, China’s media censors demanded Apple shut down the services in the country, according to The New York Times.

Over the weekend, Blizzard Entertainment banned a Hearthstone player from participating in tournaments after he voiced support for the Hong Kong protesters.

“Recognize what’s happening here. People who don’t live in China must either self censor or face dismissal & suspensions,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said in a tweet on Tuesday.

Blizzard is withholding any prize money Blitzchung would have earned and has banned him from competing in any tournaments for one year, effective on October 5th. The company also terminated contracts with the two casters conducting Sunday’s interview.