# How We Express Ourselves Freely: Censorship, Self-censorship, and Anti-censorship on a Chinese Social Media

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.13748 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13748/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 24 Nov 2022.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Public Perceptions of Gender Bias in Large Language Models: Cases of ChatGPT and Ernie](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.09120/) (2023)
- [How People Perceive The Dynamic Zero-COVID Policy: A Retrospective Analysis From The Perspective of Appraisal Theory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.09324/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Censorship, anti-censorship, and self-censorship in an authoritarian regime have been extensively studies, yet the relationship between these intertwined factors is not well understood. In this paper, we report results of a large-scale survey study (N = 526) with Sina Weibo users toward bridging this research gap. Through descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and regression analysis, we uncover how users are being censored, how and why they conduct self-censorship on different topics and in different scenarios (i.e., post, repost, and comment), and their various anti-censorship strategies. We further identify the metrics of censorship and self-censorship, find the influence factors, and construct a mediation model to measure their relationship. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for democratic social media design and future censorship research.