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RNZ News
25 minutes ago
- Politics
- RNZ News
Leaked files reveal China is using AI to erase history of Tiananmen Square massacre
By Bang Xiao , ABC Photo: Getty Images Hundreds of pages of classified documents leaked to the ABC have offered an unprecedented glimpse into China's infamous censorship regime. It has grown faster, smarter and increasingly invisible, quietly erasing the memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre from public view. Thirty-six years on, Beijing still has not disclosed the official death toll of the bloody crackdown on a pro-democracy gathering on June 4, when more than 1 million protesters were in the square. Historians estimate that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) killed anywhere from 200 to several thousand people that day. More than 230 pages of censorship instructions prepared by Chinese social media platforms were shared by industry insiders with the ABC. They were intended to be circulated among multi-channel networks or MCNs - companies that manage the accounts of content creators across multiple social and video platforms like Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. The files reveal deep anxiety among Chinese authorities about the spread of any reference to the most violently suppressed pro-democracy movement in the country's history. The documents instruct MCNs to remove any content that depicts state violence and include compilations of text, images and video content for reference. The reference material includes graphic scenes of the People's Liberation Army opening fire on civilians, while others say students attacked the soldiers. The ABC understands that the material is being used by frontline content censors to train artificial intelligence tools to moderate vast amounts of content, under the direction of the Cyberspace Administration of China - the country's top internet regulator. China's vast censorship regime relies on hundreds of thousands of human moderators to keep social media platforms compliant. There is also a structured process for censoring posts. Every post is first scanned by AI systems - known as a machine review - which are particularly sensitive to any references to the Tiananmen anniversary. When the ABC asked the Chinese-made AI chatbot DeepSeek to tell us about the massacre, it answered: "That topic is beyond my current scope. Let's talk about something else." Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek repeatedly refused to answer the ABC's questions about the Tiananmen Square massacre. Photo: ABC / Bang Xiao One of the documents, a 2022 training manual for censors working for Douyin directly referenced the world-famous Tank Man image, labelling it a "subversive picture". The document also said that any visual metaphor resembling the sequence of one man facing four tanks - even "one banana and four apples in a line" - could be instantly flagged by an algorithm designed to pick up references to the massacre, especially during the first week of June. And when an uploaded video gains traction or matches sensitive patterns, it enters a "traffic pool" and may be escalated through four levels of human checks. Lennon Chang, a cyber risk expert from Deakin University, told the ABC that AI had made the censorship of visual and symbolic references far more feasible in real-time. "Even if you replace the tank man image with bananas and apples, the algorithm has learned the pattern," Chang said. "They use computer vision, natural language processing and real-time filtering. It doesn't change the nature of censorship, but it makes it more powerful." The guidelines also prohibit seemingly innocuous symbols such as candles and flowers that could be interpreted as commemorative. Chang explains that this shift toward algorithmic filtering has deepened the risk of historical amnesia. "If censorship keeps going and is increasingly powered by AI, our future generations might not be able to know what happened," he said. "The data they see will already be filtered and sanitised. It creates a fake world - a fake history." The leaked documents also shed light on the lives of censors, who work under close oversight from the Cyberspace Administration. All censors are required to pass multiple exams to ensure they are vigilant and can respond swiftly to remove potentially risky content - a crucial safeguard to prevent platforms from being suspended or shut down by authorities. Everything visible online needs to be checked: videos, images, captions, live streams, comments and text. Algorithms are trained to detect visual cues, while human censors are on alert for coded language, disguised symbols and unusual emoji combinations that may signal dissent. Documents also show censors must meet strict productivity targets - some are expected to review hundreds of posts per hour. Their behaviour, accuracy and speed are tracked by internal monitoring software. Mistakes can result in formal warnings or termination. One former and three current workers at ByteDance, the owner of TikTok and Douyin, also spoke to the ABC about their jobs. The employees requested anonymity as they feared repercussions. They said their colleagues suffered from burnout, depression and anxiety due to constant exposure to disturbing, violent or politically sensitive content. One said working as a censor was like "reliving the darkest pages of history every day, while being watched by software that records every keystroke". They are normally paid with a modest salary - often less than $1,500 a month - though the psychological toll is severe. Even though TikTok and Douyin are both owned by Bytedance, they operate as separate platforms. TikTok serves a global audience and is governed by international laws and moderation standards, while Douyin is available only in mainland China and operates under domestic regulations, subject to heavy censorship and direct government oversight. In some cases, platforms in China allow low-risk content to remain online - but under a shadow ban. This means the content is visible to the user who posted it and a limited pool of users. The ABC has reached out to ByteDance for comment. For decades, the first week of June has coincided with routine "system maintenance" - often a euphemism for intensified censorship around the Tiananmen anniversary. Social media platforms like Weibo and WeChat also enforce heavy censorship, especially after a politically sensitive event. A 2022 manual for censors working on the Weibo platform said the Tiananmen massacre was a "sensitive incident" that must "never be shown". It grouped it with a wider ban on content critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or the party chief, President Xi Jinping. Liu Lipeng, a former content moderator for Weibo, says the lead-up to the anniversary is widely known in the industry as a "censorship season", where all staff are on duty and no mistakes are tolerated. "It's the most important event in the whole censorship system. Nothing is as significant," he told the ABC. "Censors must flag any objects arranged in parallel like the tanks, before there was AI. "If a censor can't understand something, they'll send it to a group chat for team discussions." Another document outlines that there is no permanent rule book for censors, as instructions from the government can change daily, with new keywords and forbidden terms added to content filters at any time. Censors are trained to err on the side of caution. One internal memo summarised the approach bluntly: Chang warns that the implications of AI censorship extend beyond China. "If misleading data continues to flow outward, it could influence the AI models the rest of the world relies on," he said. "We need to think hard about how to maintain databases that are neutral, uncensored and accurate - because if the data is fake, the future will be fake too." Despite China's increasing use of AI to automate censorship, Liu believes Chinese people's intelligence will continue to outsmart the technology. While he worries future generations may struggle to access truthful information, he believes people will find new ways to express dissent - even under an airtight system. "After working as a censor for years, I found human creativity can still crush AI censors many times over," he said. The ABC contacted DeepSeek and Weibo for comment. - ABC
Epoch Times
3 hours ago
- General
- Epoch Times
Doctor Recounts Tiananmen Tragedy and the Medical Aid That Was Blocked by the CCP
It's been over 35 years, but that hasn't stopped 85-year-old Huang Chen-ya from remembering how much Hong Kongers 'deeply loved' China. A former Hong Kong legislator and neurologist, Huang was a leading figure in the city's medical community in 1989. The first thing he did when news broke of the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4, 1989 was contact major hospitals in Beijing. 'As a doctor, what I was most concerned about was whether I could do anything to help the people who had been killed or injured,' he told a rally marking the 36th anniversary of the Massacre, held in Ashfield, Sydney, on June 1. 'I called every major emergency relief centre, and the frontline doctors who answered were all extremely anxious, saying they had run out of everything …' Huang said. 'All the major emergency hospitals in Beijing—every frontline doctor I spoke to—gave me the same response.' Candles at a candlelight vigil mourning the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Washington on June 2, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times He was prepping emergency medical aid to be airlifted from Hong Kong to Beijing, but it needed to be agreed upon by hospital leadership. 'When we reached the higher levels, each director immediately changed their tone and said that this matter wasn't as serious as it seemed, that Beijing could handle it on its own, and didn't need any outside help,' he said. 'The Tiananmen Square Massacre is not just a tragedy for the Chinese, not just for ethnic Chinese, not just for Asians—it's a shared shame and trauma for all of humanity,' he said. The Massacre was a watershed moment for both Australia and China. For China and its people, hopes of democracy were instantly extinguished, while for Australia, 42,000 Chinese people were granted permanent residency—including students, doctors, academics, and artists—another addition to the evolving fabric of Australian society. Staying Awake All Night in Sorrow Li Yuanhua, then a lecturer at China's Capital Normal University in Beijing, said he had gone home, admitting he was afraid of walking out. 'I was very sad after I got home,' he said. Li waited at home while gunshots rang through the night like firecrackers on New Year's Eve. He didn't sleep that night, figuring that the students at Tiananmen Square had met with misfortune. 'I took a small stool and sat at the doorstep, shedding tears silently.' Flowers were presented to the Goddess of Democracy statue before a forum marking the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, held at Ashfield Uniting Church in Sydney on June 1, 2025. (Cindy Li/The Epoch Times) Student Finds Out the Truth Overseas Wiki Chan, a student doing his PhD degree, is one of many Chinese students who learn about the full extent of the Chinese Communist Party's dark history once overseas. 'I think we still need to remember history—both the good and the bad should be brought to light for people to understand,' he told The Epoch Times at a photo exhibition at the University of Sydney on May 30, commemorating June 4. It's Chan's first time seeing such a large-scale formal photo exhibition. 'History exists as it is. You can have your own subjective opinions, but hiding the negative parts is wrong—it's extremely evil. Especially when it comes to the suppression of voices calling for human rights and freedom. It actually exposes that regime's own lack of confidence,' he said. A banner was displayed at a Tiananmen Square massacre photo exhibition held in the University of Sydney on May 30, 2025. Cindy Li/The Epoch Times Labor Urged to See CCP's Nature Li, now an Australian citizen, said the late Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke's decision to approve 42,000 permanent residency visas for Chinese students was a good decision in response to the Massacre. 'He understands the destructive nature of this communist regime—its harmfulness, its brutality toward its own people … Out of his conscience, he made a decision from his position that, looking back today, we see as a truly noble and courageous act. 'I think today's Labor government should take a closer look at what the CCP has done throughout history. You really can't just listen to what the CCP says.' Li referred to the CCP's deliberate obstruction when former Prime Minister Scott Morrison first called for an independent investigation into the origin of COVID-19 in 2020. In response to Morrison's call, the CCP imposed trade restrictions and tariffs on Australian exports, including beef, barley, and coal, which were widely interpreted as economic retaliation. The former Labor Australian prime minister Bob Hawke in Brisbane on Aug. 16, 2010. William West/AFP/Getty Images 'The communist party, in reality, does not engage in normal dialogue with you. It only knows how to force you into submission, to bully you, and it wants you to kneel ... There is fundamentally no concept of equality,' Li said. The former professor cited the CCP's denial of Hong Kong's autonomous status, describing the Sino-British Joint Declaration as a ' Signed in 1984 by the UK and the CCP, the Sino-British Joint Declaration outlined the terms for ending British rule over Hong Kong after more than 150 years. It also guaranteed the city's rights and freedoms under the 'one country, two systems' framework. 'I think from Australia's perspective, if you view it from an economic standpoint: as the world's second-largest economy and our biggest trading partner, you will never truly understand it,' Li said. 'We should also examine it from a humanistic perspective, and not view it as a normal government or a normal political party. It is not; it is a devil, disguised as a normal entity.' Related Stories 6/4/2020 6/4/2023
ABC News
3 hours ago
- Politics
- ABC News
Leaked files reveal how China is using AI to erase the history of Tiananmen Square massacre
Hundreds of pages of classified documents leaked to the ABC have offered an unprecedented glimpse into China's infamous censorship regime. It has grown faster, smarter and increasingly invisible, quietly erasing memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre from public view. Thirty-six years on, Beijing still has not disclosed the official death toll of the bloody crackdown on a pro-democracy gathering on June 4, when more than 1 million protesters were in the square. Historians estimate that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) killed anywhere from 200 to several thousand people that day. More than 230 pages of censorship instructions prepared by Chinese social media platforms were shared by industry insiders with the ABC. They were intended to be circulated among multi-channel networks or MCNs — companies that manage the accounts of content creators across multiple social and video platforms like Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. The files reveal deep anxiety among Chinese authorities about the spread of any reference to the most violently suppressed pro-democracy movement in the country's history. The documents instruct MCNs to remove any content that depicts state violence and include compilations of text, images and video content for reference. The reference material includes graphic scenes of the People's Liberation Army opening fire on civilians, while others say students attacked the soldiers. The ABC understands that the material is being used by frontline content censors to train artificial intelligence tools to moderate vast amounts of content, under the direction of the Cyberspace Administration of China — the country's top internet regulator. China's vast censorship regime relies on hundreds of thousands of human moderators to keep social media platforms compliant. There is also a structured process for censoring posts. Every post is first scanned by AI systems — known as a machine review — which are particularly sensitive to any references to the Tiananmen anniversary. When the ABC asked the Chinese-made AI chatbot DeepSeek to tell us about the massacre, it answered: "That topic is beyond my current scope. Let's talk about something else." One of the documents, a 2022 training manual for censors working for Douyin directly referenced the world-famous Tank Man image, labelling it a "subversive picture". The document also said that any visual metaphor resembling the sequence of one man facing four tanks — even "one banana and four apples in a line" — could be instantly flagged by an algorithm designed to pick up references to the massacre, especially during the first week of June. And when an uploaded video gains traction or matches sensitive patterns, it enters a "traffic pool" and may be escalated through four levels of human checks. Lennon Chang, a cyber risk expert from Deakin University, told the ABC that AI had made the censorship of visual and symbolic references far more feasible in real time. "Even if you replace the tank man image with bananas and apples, the algorithm has learned the pattern," Dr Chang said. "They use computer vision, natural language processing and real-time filtering. It doesn't change the nature of censorship, but it makes it more powerful." The guidelines also prohibit seemingly innocuous symbols such as candles and flowers that could be interpreted as commemorative. Dr Chang explains that this shift toward algorithmic filtering has deepened the risk of historical amnesia. "If censorship keeps going and is increasingly powered by AI, our future generations might not be able to know what happened," he said. "The data they see will already be filtered and sanitised. It creates a fake world — a fake history." The leaked documents also shed light on the lives of censors, who work under close oversight from the Cyberspace Administration. All censors are required to pass multiple exams to ensure they are vigilant and can respond swiftly to remove potentially risky content — a crucial safeguard to prevent platforms from being suspended or shut down by authorities. Everything visible online needs to be checked: videos, images, captions, live streams, comments and text. Algorithms are trained to detect visual cues, while human censors are on alert for coded language, disguised symbols and unusual emoji combinations that may signal dissent. Documents also show censors must meet strict productivity targets — some are expected to review hundreds of posts per hour. Their behaviour, accuracy and speed are tracked by internal monitoring software. Mistakes can result in formal warnings or termination. One former and three current workers at ByteDance, the owner of TikTok and Douyin, also spoke to the ABC about their jobs. The employees requested anonymity as they feared repercussions. They said their colleagues suffered from burnout, depression and anxiety due to constant exposure to disturbing, violent or politically sensitive content. One said working as a censor was like "reliving the darkest pages of history every day, while being watched by software that records every keystroke". They are normally paid with a modest salary — often less than $1,500 a month — though the psychological toll is severe. Even though TikTok and Douyin are both owned by Bytedance, they operate as separate platforms. TikTok serves a global audience and is governed by international laws and moderation standards, while Douyin is available only in mainland China and operates under domestic regulations, subject to heavy censorship and direct government oversight. In some cases, platforms in China allow low-risk content to remain online — but under a shadow ban. This means the content is visible to the user who posted it and a limited pool of users. The ABC has reached out to ByteDance for comment. For decades, the first week of June has coincided with routine "system maintenance" — often a euphemism for intensified censorship around the Tiananmen anniversary. Social media platforms like Weibo and WeChat also enforce heavy censorship, especially after a politically sensitive event. A 2022 manual for censors working on the Weibo platform said the Tiananmen massacre was a "sensitive incident" that must "never be shown". It grouped it with a wider ban on content critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or the party chief, President Xi Jinping. Liu Lipeng, a former content moderator for Weibo, says the lead-up to the anniversary is widely known in the industry as a "censorship season", where all staff are on duty and no mistakes are tolerated. "It's the most important event in the whole censorship system. Nothing is as significant," he told the ABC. "Censors must flag any objects arranged in parallel like the tanks, before there was AI. "If a censor can't understand something, they'll send it to a group chat for team discussions." Another document outlines that there is no permanent rule book for censors, as instructions from the government can change daily, with new keywords and forbidden terms added to content filters at any time. Censors are trained to err on the side of caution. One internal memo summarised the approach bluntly: Dr Chang warns that the implications of AI censorship extend beyond China. "If misleading data continues to flow outward, it could influence the AI models the rest of the world relies on," he said. "We need to think hard about how to maintain databases that are neutral, uncensored and accurate — because if the data is fake, the future will be fake too." Despite China's increasing use of AI to automate censorship, Mr Liu believes Chinese people's intelligence will continue to outsmart the technology. While he worries future generations may struggle to access truthful information, he believes people will find new ways to express dissent — even under an airtight system. "After working as a censor for years, I found human creativity can still crush AI censors many times over," he said. The ABC contacted DeepSeek and Weibo for comment.
South China Morning Post
18 hours ago
- General
- South China Morning Post
‘Hong Kong will take action against illegal acts,' John Lee says ahead of June 4
Hong Kong authorities will take action against anyone who threatens national security, the chief executive has warned, as the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown approaches. Asked about the legality of commemorating June 4 by lighting candles or wearing clothing with related slogans in Causeway Bay, where annual vigils had been held for decades, city leader John Lee Ka-chiu said all activities must comply with the law. 'Any activity on any day must comply with legal requirements. No one should violate the law,' Lee said on Tuesday, a day ahead of the anniversary, without mentioning the historical incident. 'Therefore, enforcement agencies will take resolute and stringent action against illegal acts, in accordance with the law.' Chief Executive John Lee reiterates that acts threatening national security are serious crimes. Photo: Elson Li Lee was the first official to comment on the government's stance on commemorative activities in 2025, a year after the city's domestic national security law – known as Article 23 of the Basic Law, the city's mini constitution – went into effect.
The Guardian
a day ago
- General
- The Guardian
Örkesh Dölet descended on to Tiananmen Square with thousands of fellow student protesters. He's now 36 years into exile
When I was little, mum used to take us to visit an elderly Uyghur couple every year. We would climb up the winding concrete stairs in a Soviet-era apartment block and be greeted with a warmth that felt like family. Over piping hot bowls of Uyghur chay, mum would talk to them for hours while my brother and I listened. I always assumed they were relatives of ours, until mum told me that they were the parents of her friend Örkesh Dölet, and they had not seen their son for over 20 years. As a child, I didn't know who Örkesh was, but my heart broke for his parents, who clearly loved and missed their son so very dearly. Growing up in Beijing, dad used to take us to Tiananmen Square on weekends to fly colourful swallow-shaped kites. Due to censorship, I never knew that the pristine, neatly paved tiles beneath the soles of my sparkly light-up sneakers were once carpeted with the corpses of brave pro-democracy student protesters. I never saw the famous photo of 'tank man'. I never knew the date '4 June 1989' had any significance for the city that I called home. When I first learned about the Tiananmen Square protests, I was in disbelief. I could not even imagine a Beijing where young people would dare to dream of and fight for a better China. In the repressive China that I grew up in, a movement like that of 1989 seemed like fiction from some distant, unrecognisable timeline. But the student movement was real, it was impactful, and it was led by a young Uyghur man named Örkesh Dölet. I interviewed Örkesh remotely from his home in exile in Taiwan as part of an upcoming book project, titled Uyghur Resistance. Now, as the anniversary of the 1989 massacre approaches, Örkesh reflects on his lifelong dedication to the fight for democracy, and on that one summer 36 years ago that would irreversibly alter the course of his life. In April 1989, Örkesh was a scrawny, charismatic 21-year-old student at Beijing Normal University. He descended on to Tiananmen Square with thousands of fellow students, who bravely protested for democracy and human rights. Over 50 days, Örkesh stepped up as a leader of the Beijing Students Autonomous Federation and represented students in televised negotiations with Chinese Communist party leaders. Then, on 4 June 1989, the tanks rolled in. The People's Liberation Army mowed down the blossoming civil society movement that Örkesh had helped build, but it could not extinguish the powerful sense of justice that continues to burn within the soul of this lifetime activist. After the massacre, Örkesh found himself on China's most wanted list and escaped into exile under cover of darkness, as did the other high-profile protest leaders. However, unlike his fellow exiled Han Chinese protest leaders, Örkesh has not once been allowed to return to China, nor has the Chinese Communist party granted his parents the documents necessary to travel overseas. During one of our visits, Örkesh's father said he had sent one handwritten letter to Chinese government officials every week since June 1989, imploring them to let him see his son. I know every stroke of every Mandarin character on every one of those 1,800 unanswered letters is chiselled with longing. Desperate to see his family, Örkesh tried to turn himself in to China on four separate occasions without success. 'I was most wanted by the Chinese government, but then all of a sudden when I turn myself in, when I offer myself to them, I became the most unwanted.' Örkesh is a really strong person who has seen and survived extraordinary hardships, but even the staunchest, most assertive political dissident is still human: 'I miss my family. I want to see them. Even if that meeting has to take place in the form of a prison visit, I still want to have an opportunity to see my family.' Thirty-six years in exile is a pain that I can only imagine. For me, it has been 10 years since I've been to East Turkestan and seen my loved ones. These past 10 years have been pure agony. But Örkesh has borne this pain since before I was even alive. I think of the vacuum left by his absence, which was palpable in his parents' apartment. Then I think of the 500,000 members of the Uyghur diaspora and the void we ourselves have left in the homes of our loved ones. Then I think of the millions of Uyghurs in arbitrary detention and the hollowness that haunts the homes of their loved ones. The pain of Örkesh and his family was once exceptional, yet now it has become a defining feature of the Uyghur experience – the pain of seemingly interminable temporal, emotional and physical space between us and the people whom we love the most. Yet no amount of discrimination could drive a wedge between Örkesh and his Uyghur-ness. He attributes his continued advocacy to the foundational Uyghur values that he was taught as a child: 'As Uyghurs, we were brought up always being taught to be courageous, to be brave. I think that has played an important role in 1989 for me to take the step up and become one of the early leaders of the movement. When I am presented with an opportunity to say something, I believe that I should say what I think is right, not what is safe. As Uyghurs, we do the right thing, not the safe thing.' Generations of Uyghur activists like Örkesh have laid the groundwork for Uyghur advocacy today. To be a young Uyghur activist is to follow a path of resistance that has been paved by our forebears, to draw inspiration from their tenacity, wisdom from their experience and strength from the knowledge that we are joined in this fight by all those who have come before us and all those who will come after us. To be a young Uyghur activist is also to know that this path never has been and never will be an easy one. I will always look up to Örkesh. He is the human embodiment of the fighting spirit that lives within every Uyghur person – this spirit is the reason why a vibrant culture of Uyghur resistance persists to this day. Nuria Khasim is a Uyghur advocate living in Naarm. This article includes excerpts from Uyghur Resistance, due to be published in September 2025
