The “Cat’s Eye View” forum on China’s leading cultural and political commentary website Kedi.com, once the Home base for the exchange of views among China’s liberal intellectuals, was abruptly shut down this week.
The “Cat’s Eye View” forum on Kedi.com, a prominent online political forum in China, was abruptly shut down this week after 20 years of hardship. According to human rights lawyers, the closure of the forum was expected in light of the current situation in China. But there are still many netizens who feel sorry for the situation and believe that China’s freedom of expression has entered a winter.
The two-decade-old “Cat’s Eye View” forum was suddenly shut down on Tuesday (30). A notice on the site said, “After the editorial committee study, the board of directors approved”, decided to close the “cat’s eye view of people” and other three sections from 20:00 on that day.
The Kedi community website on Wednesday (31) saw a sad cry, netizen “at a glance of rivers and mountains” message, “although the Kedi network, ‘cat’s-eye view of people’ is gone, the Culture of casual theory is gone. This kind of Kedi is still called what Kedi? The castration. I cried for my beloved Kedi forum, and mourned for my Chinese nation!”
Liu Xiaoyuan, a Beijing-based human rights lawyer who had set up a personal account at “Cat’s Eye View,” lamented the closure of “Cat’s Eye View,” but he did not feel abrupt.
Liu Xiaoyuan: I don’t think it’s surprising that some public forums, including blogs, have been shut down one after another, because we can all see how freedom of speech has improved over the years. Especially the current affairs public forum, now survived, influential, I do not know if there are still.
“Cat’s Eye on People” Ranks High in National Community Forum for Ten Consecutive Years
Liu Xiaoyuan tweeted on Tuesday that Kedi Community and its “Cat’s Eye View” section has been ranked among the top community forums in China for 10 consecutive years, making it one of the most famous social and humanities forums in the Chinese online world.
Liu Xiaoyuan: On the blog, you can post some activities of the stars, the personal privacy of the stars, which is fine. Other talk about current affairs, talk about general current affairs issues can also be, more sensitive topics, you will be difficult to talk about. I don’t play Weibo anymore either, I’ve been shut down many times.
The Kedi community used to be the home base of Chinese liberal intellectuals
Ten years ago, the “Cat’s Eye View” forum was filled with scholars exchanging information and discussing national affairs almost every day, including many bold statements of so-called fierce rhetoric.
Wang Aizhong, a dissident from Guangzhou, China, expressed his nostalgia for the function of “Cat’s Eye View” in an interview with us.
Wang Aizhong: There is no way to compare the influence of the Kaidi community or Tianya community with that of the past, but as a platform for communication before the microblogging era, it did have great influence back then. It was a very important platform for people to discuss current political issues. In the past few years, we often visited the site.
In recent years, as China’s network department controls the speech of various Internet forums, microblogs and WeChat, many forums, including the Kedi community, have numerous articles blocked, and deletion of posts has become the network norm.
Wang Aizhong said: Now with the large domestic Internet platforms, microblogging, WeChat is under strict regulation, the past legacy, not so influential platforms are required to regulate, that shows that the authorities on the censorship of speech is a trend, I think it is sooner or later, the future of China Mo talk about the country is becoming the norm.
The community was launched in April 2000, with a maximum of 800,000 daily visitors, of which the “Cat’s Eye View” section is the main section of the community.
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