Who is responsible? Is it a matter of algorithmic zombies bouncing around and just accidentally obeying Party dictates, with human characteristics like volition and judgment never entering the picture?
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men and code? Maybe Grok knows (RTI News, November 28, 2025).
When asked about X’s possible cooperation with Chinese content censorship, chatbot Grok answered that X is, in fact, partially helping the CCP to “maintain stability” on its platform as an unfortunate reality of doing business….
[Niu Tengyu] was severely punished and tortured for allegedly leaking photos of Xi Mingze, Xi Jinping’s daughter, online. Since then, his mother, Coco, has vehemently spoken out on X…. Her account is frequently banned without warning, or marked as containing sensitive content—and even after reinstatement and appeals, she remains a target for pro-China nationalists and online trolls. This has resulted in the frequent shadow-banning of her account—or limiting its exposure, for example, letting users view, but not interact with posts.
A netizen asked Grok why Coco’s account was repeatedly restricted, and received four reasons. First, Grok said that it “crossed a red line” regarding political topics. Second, it received systematic large-scale reporting. Third, Grok said it was affected by political pressure from Chinese authorities, especially regarding potential cooperation. Finally, Grok said the account encountered limitations imposed by the platform’s own risk-control algorithms.
The AI notes that such situations are common on X, saying many Chinese dissident accounts, such as Zhang Zhan’s mother, accounts involved with the “8964” incident and White Paper Movement, have long been subjected to traffic restrictions or labeled for “sensitive content.” This matches what independent Chinese journalist Gao Yu has reported about her fluctuating follower count, and rumors that X’s Chinese content moderation team is based in Singapore.
“8964” is an allusion to the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989, online mention of which CCP censors do all they can to prevent and stamp out. The White Paper Movement of 2022 was a protest against censorship and the absurd and dangerous restrictions that the state imposed to combat the spread of COVID-19. Many protestors held up a blank sheet of paper as a way of saying that even being forced to be mute can speak volumes. Zhang Zhan is a young woman in prison for having reported on the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan at a time when the Chinese government was trying to keep the pandemic a secret.
I assume that Grok’s reporting and explanation, which are corroborated by the experiences of humans, is more or less correct. The solution is, first of all, to regard the problem as a problem to be solved. Then the X managers and X programmers will be able to solve it.
Fix it
At least the X accounts that are known to be targeted by minions of the CCP must be protected. This can be done by writing code that automatically prevents all automated bans and shadow bans of those accounts. Arrange things so that any legitimate restrictions on those protected accounts must be approved by enough different people in X management that it won’t matter whether one or two of them turn out to be also working for the Chinese Communist Party.
Can this and other and better fixes be implemented? Of course. Perhaps they would be technically difficult to implement, but that’s why the coders get the big bucks. It’s discouraging, though, that this kind of instigating of censorship by the CCP and its goons hasn’t already been thoroughly blocked by X and expunged from X.
A major reason that Elon Musk took over Twitter was to uphold freedom of speech on the platform. He has made some big strides in that respect. But these strides are nonetheless too few and too modest if the Chinese Communist Party can effectively target the same anti-CCP accounts over and over. Are Musk and the others in charge of X just distracted—or are they neglecting to tackle the problem for other reasons?
