China’s Twitter erases John Oliver after scathing attack on President Xi Jinping

British comedian scrubbed from social media after skit mentions ‘dystopian levels of surveillance and persecution’ of Uygurs in Xinjiang

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Attempts to publish posts on Weibo mentioning British comedian John Oliver’s name or the name of his television show resulted in an error message. Photo: Handout

Published: 7:30pm, 21 Jun 2018Updated: 5:42pm, 22 Jun 2018

British comedian John Oliver has been scrubbed from China’s internet after the host of Last Week Tonight ran a 20-minute segment satirising Chinese President Xi Jinping.

New posts mentioning his name or the show have been blocked on the Twitter-like microblogging platform Weibo.

Oliver’s scathing parody of Xi on Sunday covered human rights abuses, “dystopian levels of surveillance and persecution” of Uygurs in China’s western Xinjiang region, the continued detention of Liu Xia, wife of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo who died last year in state custody, and online censorship, including memes comparing Xi’s figure with that of Winnie the Pooh.

“Clamping down on Winnie the Pooh comparisons doesn’t exactly project strength. It suggests a weird insecurity,” Oliver said.

China’s President Xi Jinping, seen here in a file photo with former US President Barack Obama, has been likened to the cartoon character Winnie the Pooh. Photo: Xinhua

Attempts to publish posts mentioning Oliver’s name or the name of the show resulted in an error message that the post violated “relevant laws, regulations, or violates Weibo community rules”.

China’s Twitter erases John Oliver after scathing attack on President Xi Jinping

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}British comedian scrubbed from social media after skit mentions ‘dystopian levels of surveillance and persecution’ of Uygurs in Xinjiang

British comedian scrubbed from social media after skit mentions ‘dystopian levels of surveillance and persecution’ of Uygurs in Xinjiang