The following post by Chinese legal scholar Xu Xin (徐昕) about democracy in China was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 7:13 a.m. today, August 24, 2012. Xu Xin currently has just under 125,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
[Democracy] Democracy is very complex, so complex that it is the only thing China is unable to clone (山寨) — unknown origin.
Xu Xin’s post is accompanied by a cartoon of unknown origin — perhaps concerning the ongoing conflict in Syria — in which two men stand together, one holding a military-grade rifle and peering down its barrel. The man standing next to him asks: “Can you see democracy in there?”
The following is the original Chinese post:
【民主】民主是一种很复杂的东西，复杂到这是中国人唯一没能山寨成功的东西。——作者不详
NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.
