China Digital Times
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| Available in | English, Chinese |
|---|---|
| Created by | Counter-Power Lab, University of California, Berkeley |
| Website | ChinaDigitalTimes.net |
| Alexa rank |
 63,272 (May 2016[update]) |
| Commercial | No |
| Current status | Active |
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Content license
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CC-by 2.0 |
China Digital Times (CDT; Chinese: 中国数字时代) is a California-based bilingual news website covering China. It aggregates news and analysis from around the Web, while also providing its own original analysis, commentary, translations and multimedia content. According to Alexa.com, visitors to the site are coming from more than one hundred countries.
The site focuses especially on news items which are blocked, deleted or suppressed by China's state censors. In 2009, it published a set of documents leaked by a Baidu employee which revealed events, people and places that were deemed politically sensitive.
The types of words, phrases and web addresses being censored by the government include names of Chinese high level leadership; protest and dissident movements; politically sensitive events, places and people; and foreign websites and organisations blocked at network level, along with pornography etc. According to Freedom House, a US-based NGO, researchers at China Digital Times have reportedly identified over 800 filtered terms, including “Cultural Revolution” and “propaganda department”.
China Digital Times has maintained ongoing coverage of the government clampdown on Chinese internet users – which includes imposing penalties of up to three years in prison for posting 'rumours' shared more than 500 times, or viewed by more than 5,000 people. The publication has also covered the backlash against increased censorship from China's independent media, and employees of state media.
Samuel Wade at China Digital Times observes that, among American internet companies, is almost alone in defying Chinese self-censorship demands.
The China Digital Times website has been blocked in mainland China since 2006 and in response, Xiao launched a Chinese-language site in 2011. That site has since also been blocked, but numerous methods are used to ensure the site remains accessible in China – including email lists, social media and mirror sites.
A popular section on the site is ‘Minitrue’, which is short for ‘Ministry of Truth’. It makes a point of highlighting official government directives to media organisations, requiring them to censor or remove postings on sensitive matters. On the other hand, if a particular news event is favourable to the government, a directive will sometimes be issued that insists that this be "prominently displayed" on the home pages of online news sites.
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