The following post by Chinese writer Zhang Yihe (章诒和) about the crippling climate of doubt and credibility created by the control of information in China was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 11:56 a.m. today, August 23, 2012. Zhang Yihe currently has more than 275,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

A friend of mine wrote: Was Liu Xiang’s appearance at the Olympics all just a performance? Was Ye Shiwen on steroids or not? Was that really Gu Kailai in the courtroom? Was it really Zhou Kehua (周克华) who was beaten to death? And on and on. This makes one think of the ancient story of the boy who cried wolf, who was lying over and over so no one believed him, until he was eaten himself by the wolf. China’s propaganda machine has cranked out lies for 60 years. Now it has come to the point that anything they say is met with doubt.

The following is the original Chinese post:

一位朋友写道：刘翔的奥运表现是在做戏吗？叶诗文到底有没有服药？法庭上的谷开来是本人吗？被打死的是周克华吗？等等。这不禁让人联想起一则古老故事—狼来了！孩子只说了一次谎，就没有人相信，最后喂身于狼。中国宣传机器命大福大，说了六十多年的谎，现在终于到了每说一句话，都被人怀疑的阶段了。