5.21.4.1. Ciro Santilli’s Zhihu purge 2019-11-03 (三西猴被知乎抹去)
On this day, not only the posts made by Ciro himself were deleted: he had never asked any questions or made any Zhuanlan posts himself, only replied to those. But that content made by other users was still removed. Therefore, this is not just a simple user ban, but active censorship.
Ciro received an email from account@mail.zhihu.com:
您好，Ciro Santilli，很抱歉您的回答受到了牵连，您回答过的问题「github.com@cirosantilli 是谁维护的，为什么会收集邮箱地址？」因「违反互联网相关法律法规」已被删除。
followed by Ciro’s answer to github.com@cirosantilli 是谁维护的，为什么会收集邮箱地址？. Ciro could not login anymore, the login screen showed:
帐号已停用，请联系：user@zhihu.com
So likely someone must have used the fact that this was an edgy personally information release subject issue, and then someone from Zhihu decided to purge Ciro and anyone posts that ever talked about him.
Ciro’s blocked account:
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before deletion: https://web.archive.org/web/20190821075907/https://www.zhihu.com/people/cirosantilli/activities
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after deletion (redirects to login page): https://web.archive.org/web/20191103071033/https://www.zhihu.com/signin?next=http://www.zhihu.com/people/cirosantilli/activities
Random unblocked control account: https://www.zhihu.com/people/lu-zhen-yu-96-65/activities (archive).
Furthermore, all questions related to Ciro, including the posts criticizing him such as https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/25600138 (archive), were taken down. This made Ciro laugh: in China, you can’t even criticize that which is censored, or your post also gets taken down.
Ciro then created an anonymous Zhihu account after this event.
Interestingly however, the following answer came up later on: Answer to the Zhihu question "How do you evaluate Ted Chiang’s 'Evil Chinese Characters' essay?" "如何评价姜峯楠（Ted Chiang）在纽约客上的随笔《坏汉字》？"的回答 and stayed up for at least 5 months, which indicates that Zhihu did a one-off removal, and did not set up a filter for Ciro’s name.
On this day, not only the posts made by Ciro himself were deleted: he had never asked any questions or made any Zhuanlan posts himself, only replied to those. But that content made by other users was still removed. Therefore, this is not just a simple user ban, but active censorship.
Ciro received an email from account@mail.zhihu.com:
您好，Ciro Santilli，很抱歉您的回答受到了牵连，您回答过的问题「github.com@cirosantilli 是谁维护的，为什么会收集邮箱地址？」因「违反互联网相关法律法规」已被删除。
followed by Ciro’s answer to github.com@cirosantilli 是谁维护的，为什么会收集邮箱地址？. Ciro could not login anymore, the login screen showed:
帐号已停用，请联系：user@zhihu.com
So likely someone must have used the fact that this was an edgy personally information release subject issue, and then someone from Zhihu decided to purge Ciro and anyone posts that ever talked about him.
Ciro’s blocked account:
-
before deletion: https://web.archive.org/web/20190821075907/https://www.zhihu.com/people/cirosantilli/activities
-
after deletion (redirects to login page): https://web.archive.org/web/20191103071033/https://www.zhihu.com/signin?next=http://www.zhihu.com/people/cirosantilli/activities
Random unblocked control account: https://www.zhihu.com/people/lu-zhen-yu-96-65/activities (archive).
Furthermore, all questions related to Ciro, including the posts criticizing him such as https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/25600138 (archive), were taken down. This made Ciro laugh: in China, you can’t even criticize that which is censored, or your post also gets taken down.
Ciro then created an anonymous Zhihu account after this event.
Interestingly however, the following answer came up later on: Answer to the Zhihu question "How do you evaluate Ted Chiang’s 'Evil Chinese Characters' essay?" "如何评价姜峯楠（Ted Chiang）在纽约客上的随笔《坏汉字》？"的回答 and stayed up for at least 5 months, which indicates that Zhihu did a one-off removal, and did not set up a filter for Ciro’s name.