As the trade war between the United States and China intensifies, Beijing has started censoring some tariff-related content on social media, news agency Reuters reported.
Hashtags and searches for “tariff” or “104” (the tariff amount in percentage) have been blocked on the social media platform Weibo, with pages showing an error message.
The hashtags returned an error message that said: “Sorry, the content of this topic is not displayed,” The New York Times reported.
The censorship also extended to WeChat, where a wide range of posts from Chinese companies that highlighted the negative impact of Trump’s tariffs were taken down, a review by Reuters found.
The censored posts were marked by the same label stating the “content was suspected of violating relevant laws, regulations, and policies”.
On the other hand, hashtags which appeared as mocking the United States and suggesting that the North American country has a egg shortage were amongst the most viewed on Weibo, according to Reuters.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV also started a hashtag on the line of it: “#UShastradewarandaneggshortage.”
