Julien Chen was getting ready for bed when he learned that one of his favorite Chinese tennis players, Peng Shuai, had made #MeToo allegations against a powerful Chinese official.
A friend told him to check Peng¡¯s social media account. ¡°There¡¯s a ¡®huge melon¡¯ in the tennis circle,¡± the friend wrote, using the Chinese metaphor for a bombshell.
Chen could not find anything. He searched the word ¡°tennis,¡± but Peng ¡ª one of China¡¯s most famous athletes ¡ª appeared in barely any results. With stunning efficiency, China¡¯s censors had begun scrubbing references to her allegations from the internet.
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