The following post by Zuo Yeben (作业本) responding to Xi Jinping’s statement that he would “shut power up in the cage and strike the tigers [of corruption] as well as the flies”, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 11:02am today, January 23, 2013. Zuo Yeben currently has just over 4.9 million followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre]
I’m begging you [Xi Jinping] not to throw power into the cage first!!!! We are all still here inside the cage!!! If you let them in without letting us out first they’ll bite us to death!!!
The original Chinese-language post follows:
求先别把权力关进笼子!!!!我们都还在笼子里!!!不把我们先放出去就把他们关进来会把我们咬死的!!![泪]
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.