What has been seen can be unseen: a catalog of photos censored by China’s Sina Weibo

There’s a lot that cannot be said on China’s internet. And there’s much that cannot be shown as well. That’s why US-based non-profit ProPublica has created a catalog of images and photos that have been censored by and removed from Sina Weibo, the country’s equivalent of Twitter.

It creates a hectic yet somehow moving mosaic of social issues, disaffection, and utterly bizarre Orwellian hyper-vigilance. Sina Weibo, being a real-time social network, is at the forefront of people’s pushback against what cannot be said, shown, or shared in China.

These banished images show that what can be seen can be unseen – at least in the minds of the censors, if not in the visual cortex of the nation’s netizens. Here’s a small selection:

Above: A yawning politician. That cannot be seen.

Above: Propaganda posters are common on every street. One mischievous Weibo user covered up the first two characters on a banner so that the message then read, “Marching to a New Prosperity Only If the Party Leaves.”

Above: Another Weibo user highlighted the stiffness and inaccessibility of Chinese officials in contrast to fist-bumping Obama.