5.21.4.1.1. Ciro Santilli’s Zhihu ban 2018-06-25

As a result, since that time I will be answering Zhihu questions as issues in this repo with the zhihu label: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Azhihu+

I have however never posted anything politically sensitive on Zhihu, unless my name and profile picture have reached that distinction, and therefore the ban is clearly an unfair per-person ban.

But of course, all is fair in love and war, and politics.

Posting any sensitive content on Chinese websites is a waste of time, since it only means that they will be removed and you will waste time creating a new account, I will never do that.

The only significant content I ever posted on Zhihu is the answer to: https://www.zhihu.com/question/46957710/answer/122827944 which is purely technical, and trivial replies on threads that other people have started about me. Have those people been blocked like me?

My posts are still up and it does not appear to be possible for people to see that I have been banned, but whenever I try to take any action on the website a popup appears saying:

由于严重违反 知乎社区管理规定 ,该帐号已被永久禁言

This includes liking, commenting, answering, asking or trying to update my profile to say that I have been blocked.

This message also shows on my public page for everyone to see: https://www.zhihu.com/people/cirosantilli/activities but they use some JavaScript scheme complicated enough that archive.is cannot capture it.

I still get notifications however, but I am unable to reply to them, especially given that all Chinese accounts, unlike mine, have no personal identifiable information due to the understandable fear Chinese citizens have of their own government, even though such accounts might be illegal in theory: Anonymous accounts ban (2017).

The only action that I can take now is to report abusive comments people make to me.

Obviously, the only effect of such ban is that I will create an anonymous account under Tor with a second cell phone if I wish to contribute in the future, and China will have less information about my political interests than before.

The private messages the website sends while banning you are:

知乎管理员 :您好,根据用户举报,您的帐号发布了「政治敏感」内容,帐号已根据知乎社区规范被永久禁言。处理详情可查看社区服务中心。具体规范请查看知乎社区管理规定。 6月25日 16:37 回复 | 删除

知乎管理员 :您好,根据用户举报,您的部分个人信息由于不符合知乎用户信息管理规范已被重置。用户名可以在设置页面中修改,修改后会自动进入审核等待通过;其他个人信息可以在个人主页中编辑。感谢您对知乎社区的理解和支持。 6月25日 16:37 回复 | 删除

The ban came soon after I posted a link to my GitHub repo as a comment at: https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/21/ice-employee-list-github-linkedin/ maybe they are related.