Study finds 1.55% of public WeChat posts censored

1.55% of public posts by users of 36,000 “official” accounts on Tencent’s (0700.HKG) social network and messaging platform WeChat were deleted during the period from June 2014 to March 2015, according to a study by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, Tech In Asia reported. 1.48% of the accounts tracked by Citizen Lab – run by companies, brands, outlets and celebrities and which can publish publicly viewable posts – were suspended, and about 5% of accounts had at least one post censored, with another 2.44% of posts self-censored (published, then deleted by users). But Citizen Lab also found evidence of filters for sensitive terms that can’t be published at all.