Algorithmic
Censorship
Resistance
Toolkit
An ongoing collection of
algorithmic censorship resistance tactics
Hanzi Maker
Creating new characters using the Chinese (Mandarin) radical system. Based on invented characters from the 2014 Hong Kong Protests, documented in the paper “Tranßcripting: playful subversion with Chinese characters”
Made by: The Future of Memory team
Chinese Homophone
In Chinese, a tonal language, words can be represented by different characters but sound similar. For example, 河蟹; pinyin: héxiè (river crab) sounds similar to 和谐; pinyin: héxié (harmony, used to mock the CCP espousal of a “harmonious society”). This tool translates censored words into their homophones — readers will know the real meaning of the word depending on the context.
Made by: The Future of Memory team
Morse Code Generator
In recent years, online netizens in China have been using Morse code as a way to post sensitive information onto WeChat and Weibo.
Mojibake Generator
Mojibake is a phenomenon that describes when text is garbled, as a result of being decoded using a different character encoding than the one it was generated with. For more on Mojibake, which in Japanese means “character changing”, take a look here.
Text to Emoji Converter
Used throughout the world, emoji is an efficient and expressive way to convey all manner of content, from politically sensitive topics to whole novels.
Text to Hex Converter
Used to translate plain text (ASCII) into hexadecimal, students have also been storing messages on the Ethereum blockchain in hex to avoid censorship and takedown.
Martian Language Generator
Martian Language, or 火星文; pinyin: huǒxīng, is popular amongst bloggers and is a combination of many strategies to bypass censorship — including replacing character with homophones, SMS slang and characters with similar radicals.
Braille Translator
Translating into Braille is also another strategy Chinese netizens have used to bypass takedown of posts. Braille is readable via a refreshable Braille display.