In the early hours of Feb. 7, China¡¯s powerful internet censors experienced an unfamiliar and deeply unsettling sensation. They felt they were losing control.
The news was spreading quickly that Li Wenliang, a doctor who had warned about a strange new viral outbreak only to be threatened by the police and accused of peddling rumors, had died of COVID-19. Grief and fury coursed through social media. To people at home and abroad, Li¡¯s death showed the terrible cost of the Chinese government¡¯s instinct to suppress inconvenient information.
Yet China¡¯s censors decided to double down. Warning of the ¡°unprecedented challenge¡± Li¡¯s passing had posed and the ¡°butterfly effect¡± it may have set off, officials got to work suppressing the inconvenient news and reclaiming the narrative, according to confidential directives sent to local propaganda workers and news outlets.
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