CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content Archive.” Each month, we publish a summary of content blocked or deleted (often yielding the message “404: content not found”) from Chinese platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, Douyin (TikTok’s counterpart in the Chinese market), Xiaohongshu (RedNote), Bilibili, Zhihu, Douban, and others. Although this content archived by CDT Chinese editors represents only a small fraction of the online content that disappears each day from the Chinese internet, it provides valuable insight into which topics are considered “sensitive” over time by the Party-state, cyberspace authorities, and platform censors. Our fully searchable Chinese-language “404 Deleted Content Archive,” currently contains 2,492 deleted articles, essays, and other pieces of content. The entry for each deleted item includes the author/social media account name, the original publishing platform, the subject matter, the date of deletion, and more information.
Below is a list of key topics and some related deleted articles from CDT’s summary of deleted content for March 2026. Between March 1-31, CDT Chinese added 36 new articles, primarily from WeChat, to the archive. (Note that the dates refer to when an article was published on the CDT website, not when it was deleted from Chinese social-media platforms.) Topics targeted for deletion in March included:
- The War in Iran: Iranian politics, women’s rights in Iran, the Iranian women’s soccer team, Chinese pundits’ predictions about the war, a donation scam targeting Chinese social media users, etc.
- March 8 International Women’s Day and content related to feminism and women’s rights
- The legacy of entrance-exam guru and educational influencer Zhang Xuefeng, who died of a heart attack at the age of 41
- March 15 “Consumer Day” in China
- Massive enthusiasm about the open-source AI agent “Open Claw”
- Tightening WeChat censorship and shared WeChat “404 experiences”
The War in Iran
In March, CDT Chinese editors archived a dozen articles about various aspects of the war in Iran, touching on Iranian history and politics, the state of women’s rights in Iran, Chinese state-media coverage of the war, the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei in U.S.-Israeli air strikes, and more.
Quite a few of the censored pieces criticized overly confident televised pronouncements by some Chinese pundits who claimed that the U.S. wouldn’t go to war with Iran, or that if war did occur, that the U.S. and Israel would be routed in short order. A piece by Mu Bai includes a number of screenshots of such pundits, including Fudan University’s Shen Yi and PLA commentator Li Li, making predictions that were rapidly overturned by real-life events. (Another post about Li Li’s poor analytical track record—“Her predictions are spot-on, as long as you reverse them”—was censored back in January.) A now-deleted article by WeChat account Unyielding Bamboo describes some wildly inaccurate analyses by domestic pundits and asks, “Why do people even still believe them?” WeChat account History Rhymes wrote about past repression of dissent by Ali Khamenei and noted that there were reportedly some street celebrations after he and some members of his family were killed in air attacks, although this was not reported by Chinese state media.
"The U.S. and Israel Will Lose So Badly, They Won’t Even Be Able to Find Their Own Underwear" by Lao Xiao, WeChat Account Lao Xiao’s Random Musings
March 3, 2026
In early March, CDT English translated this WeChat post parodying some of the absurdly confident predictions about the war in Iran from Chinese analysts. The last word in the Chinese title is 内衣 nèiyī, a nickname for Khamenei punning on the final characters of his Chinese name, 哈梅内伊 Hāméinèiyī. Although the piece never names Khamenei directly, in an apparent effort to evade keyword scans, it was still deleted from the platform. A portion of the translation is excerpted below:
[A]s soon as the first shot was fired in the 2025 Israel-Iran conflict, [Khamenei] dove into a bunker 80 meters underground.
This "safehouse," strengthened with reinforced concrete and Kevlar fiber, could reportedly withstand a hit from a GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, though it couldn’t shield him from accusations of cowardice from those left outside.
He and his wife hid themselves away in a defensive installation 90-100 meters below ground, protected by a phalanx of Revolutionary Guards and a carefully hidden subterranean entrance [….]
On the streets of Tehran, meanwhile, the ordinary people lived in terror of economic sanctions and the flames of war. How were they "sharing the masses’ fate"? On top of everything else, the authorities adopted a series of harsh measures like internet blackouts and security-force deployments beginning in January this year, arresting some 3,000 people and sentencing some of them to hanging, and establishing a draconian control regime comprising a "digital Iron Curtain + armed clearance."
Bullshit is the religious charlatans’ magic weapon: they try to spin their lies into a cloak of authority in the hope that illusory worship will make the masses forget their real suffering. [Source]
Other censored content about the war in Iran includes an article by WeChat blogger Xiang Dongliang about the popular belief among the Chinese public that the U.S. was motivated by a grab for Iranian oil, and a piece from blogger Mu Bai about the proliferation of scams soliciting donations from Chinese netizens to “help Iran.” Mu Bai notes that the Iranian Embassy in China released an official statement warning against these scams, although it was worded in a very roundabout way.
March 8 International Women’s Day and censorship of content related to feminism and women’s rights
Around March 8 International Women’s Day, several deleted posts were highly critical of constraints on women’s rights under the Iranian theocracy, and two other posts highlighted news about members of the Iranian national women’s soccer team who had sought asylum in Australia after their refusal to sing the Iranian national anthem at an overseas match led to them being labeled “wartime traitors” by Iranian state television. (Five of the seven who sought asylum later withdrew their claims and returned to Iran.)
In addition to the usual uptick in deleted content around March 8 International Women’s Day, there was also a spate of bans on the eve of March 8 that struck WeChat public accounts focused on feminism, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, combatting human trafficking, and promoting mental health, a sign of the continuing stigmatization and silencing of debate about these issues. At about the same time, a comedian known as Xiao Pa (full name Paziliyaer Paerhati) had her Weibo account suspended for posting this joke: “I’ve been bedridden for two days with a high fever. Suddenly it hit me that if I had a husband and kids, I’d be clinging to the wall, dragging myself out of bed just to cook for them.” The suspension drew outrage from Weibo users, many of whom said they related to the joke, and that it simply reflected the gender imbalance of household chores common in many households. “What did she write?” read one Weibo comment, which was later deleted by platform censors. “Let me see … Oh, she just wrote the truth.”
CDT editors also archived a farewell letter from WeChat blogger Ai Daxun, discussing the closure of her WeChat account in advance of Women’s Day and thanking her readers for their support. Ai mentions that she is likely the most moderate of the social-affairs commentators many readers follow, and that despite her best efforts, even she was unable to avoid the red lines of censorship:
With Women’s Day approaching, I felt that I should post more, and had a lot of content ready to go, but this is such a sensitive period of time, I was afraid that I might go wrong no matter what I published.
My concerns weren’t unfounded. Last year just before Women’s Day, I tried to organize an offline book-club meeting in Guangdong, but just two nights before the event, I got word that it was canceled. I haven’t tried to organize any offline events since then.
[…] A little while later, I checked the backend again, and realized that […] my account was already gone.
As it turns out, the cause of my account ban was a law-related article I’d published last July about the Wuhan University Library [sexual harassment] incident.
[…] Seven months after the fact, my account was “bombed” because of that article. I find it quite baffling, because I’ve had many other articles deleted in the past. Why would they decide to ban me now, over an article that wasn’t even deleted at the time?
[…] At this juncture, I want to point out that I might be the most moderate of the accounts you follow that are still tracking societal events. Sometimes I even avoid expressing my opinions outright, and confine myself to presenting only what I consider to be crucial evidence. Despite this, my account was still shut down. My constant compromises and abundance of caution proved to be futile in the face of ever-encroaching red lines. [Source]
The legacy of controversial entrance-exam guru and educational influencer Zhang Xuefeng
Another topic targeted for censorship in March was the legacy of educational influencer Zhang Xuefeng, who died of a heart attack at the age of 41. Huge crowds thronged the streets near a funeral home in Suzhou to pay tribute to the “entrance exam guru” who had advised so many young people and their parents—particularly those from rural and working-class backgrounds—on the path to academic and career success.
Chinese editors archived 14 articles, at least four of which were deleted from WeChat, about Zhang’s unabashedly "utilitarian" educational philosophy and his complicated legacy. One censored article, by blogger Lao Xiao, describes Zhang as a sort of “spiritual pacifier” and suggests that students might be better off without his educational bromides. “When the only valid belief is that ‘choosing the right major equals a stable future,’ education is transformed from a nurturing soil to an ‘all-or-nothing’ gamble. Forcing children to abandon humanities and social sciences and dive headfirst into fields they don’t relate to may deprive them of opportunities to define themselves, unleash their creative potential, and better understand the world.”
A deleted piece by current-affairs blogger Wei Chunliang (“Zhang Xuefeng, You Have Become the Memory of a Generation”) argues that if a person’s value is measured by how many others they helped during their lifetime, then Zhang certainly deserves some recognition and gratitude:
[W]hether you liked him or not, you have to admit that when it came to bridging the information gap, Zhang Xuefeng did more, and did it better, than the vast majority of educators out there—especially for kids living out in the sticks or studying at second-rate high schools.
[…] They were like frogs trapped at the bottom of a well, able to glimpse only a tiny patch of the sky above.
The most important thing Zhang Xuefeng did was to lower a rope into that well, offering them a way out.
He didn’t mince words. During one of his livestreams, he told a parent: “If that were my kid and he insisted on studying journalism, I’d knock him senseless and sign him up for something else!"
He had no qualms about shattering illusions: "Unless your family’s loaded, that isn’t the major for you."
Such advice seems harsh, even cruel.
But the thing is: he was telling the truth. [Source]
A deleted article from WeChat account Yaya’s Room (“Rest in Peace, Teacher Zhang Xuefeng, and May Schoolgirls Never Have to Listen to Your Paternalistic Lecturing Again”) offers a different perspective, focusing on the often stark gap between Zhang’s advice to male and female students:
What I find most objectionable is Zhang Xuefeng’s view on gender. This is mainly reflected in his educational advice to female students, which frequently includes the phrase: "Find a boyfriend." In short, regardless of whether or not a girl is seeking relationship advice, Zhang Xuefeng will “offer his two cents” on the subject of love and marriage—the gist of which is to tell her to “find a boyfriend” and “follow him wherever he goes.” Zhang never gives this kind of advice to male students.
As is abundantly clear, Zhang Xuefeng’s advice to many young women is that you don’t need to work hard to develop your career, you just need to find a man who is willing to support you. In his eyes, women’s roles within the family are as wives and mothers, and he hopes that women will internalize these roles and plan their lives accordingly. [Source]
March 15 “Consumer Day” in China
The annual March 15 “Consumer Day” in China, and its often self-congratulatory televised gala component, has long been accused of targeting low-hanging fruit, ignoring China’s glaring lack of consumer-product oversight, and naming and shaming only the most egregious offenders. This year, a censored article by WeChat blogger and current-affairs commentator Wei Chunliang criticized the performative nature of the March 15 televised gala. A translated excerpt of Wei’s article appears below.
“The Performative Annual 315 Gala: Who Are They Fooling?” by Wei Chunliang, WeChat account Liang Jian
March 16, 2026
The annual 315 Gala seems less about proving how awful product quality is than about proving how “inured” we have become to these various toxins.
[…] Each year after March 15th, do the relevant authorities follow up on these cases? And if so, how do they handle them? Are the companies involved given the punishment they deserve? Are the problems addressed and corrected? It seems that very few media outlets are interested in doing follow-up reporting on this.
This centralized command performance, this campaign-style performative enforcement is but a one-off, a fleeting moment that is all fanfare and spectacle.
That said, why do local authorities only pay attention to food safety issues, product quality problems, and regulatory violations after the media reports appear? Isn’t there supposed to be routine oversight and enforcement all year round?
As one internet user put it: “The biggest problem with the 315 Gala is that it turns government inaction and inadequate supervision into a celebratory banquet.” [Chinese]
The FOMO-driven craze for installing open-source AI agent Open Claw
In March, China experienced a nationwide craze for installing Open Claw, an open-source AI agent capable of autonomously controlling a computer, browsing the web, managing files, handling emails, and much more. Many online Chinese articles discussed the lucrative market for these installs, which seemed to be driven, at least in part, by a fear of missing out on the latest AI tool and falling behind one’s colleagues, classmates, or competitors. One such article, “FOMO, Frenzy, and Uninstalling: An Open-Claw ‘Home Installation’ Worker Talks About the Latest Craze,” from WeChat account True Story Project, discusses the lucrative gig economy that appeared overnight, offering home installations of the sought-after tool. The author also notes that before long, reports of security incidents and warnings from Chinese business and cyberspace authorities prompted many users to uninstall Open Claw, opening up another revenue stream for home-installers, some of whom were charging 499 yuan ($73 U.S.) to install it, and 299 yuan ($44) to remove it.
Tightening WeChat censorship and WeChat “404 experiences”
On March 25, WeChat announced that since the beginning of the year, it had permanently banned 1,209 accounts and sanctioned more than 60,000 accounts for various violations. Alongside this tightening platform censorship, many WeChat bloggers have published “404 experience” articles explaining to their readers why certain of their posts were blocked or deleted, or giving advice to other WeChat users about how to avoid falling afoul of platform censors. (See previous CDT translations about a post that got the hammer due to an unruly comments section; a “positive energy” post about energy prices that was too “timely” for its own good; and a post that got scrubbed for quoting official government statistics about the birthrate.) One notable “404 experience” post that was archived by CDT Chinese editors in March is an extraordinary public appeal from legal- and social-affairs blogger Li Yuchen, who has had over 40 WeChat official accounts closed over the years due to their unvarnished coverage of such topics as judicial injustice and the abuse of power. In the archived post, Li asks if anyone might be willing to risk “lending” their WeChat accounts so that Li can continue publishing and advocating for justice, accountability, and fairness.