News of Chinese American director Chloé Zhao’s historic win in the best director category at Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony was censored in China, possibly due to Zhao’s past history of criticizing the government in Beijing.
The Associated Press reported that posts celebrating Zhao’s win were removed or hit with censorship notices on multiple sites, including on the mega-popular Weibo platform, where some Chinese users reportedly resorted to using Zhao’s initials to discuss the Oscars without censorship.
While no reason was reportedly given for the censorship beyond a notice on some posts that read “according to relevant laws and regulations and policies, the page is not found,” Zhao in 2013 described China as “a place where there are lies everywhere,” according to the Chinese news site Global Times, and has faced backlash in the country ever since.
She was also reportedly erroneously quoted in a recent interview with Australian media as saying that the United States “is now my country, ultimately,” which drew further controversy from some in China who accused her of giving up her Chinese nationality.
Other apps, including the film-centered social media platform Douban, returned no results when searches for Zhao and her film, “Nomadland,” were entered, according to the AP, which reported that the site returned an error message reading “the search results could not be displayed in accordance to relevant laws and regulations” when her name or the movie were searched.
Searches for other Oscars-related content were working as usual, the AP reported, and articles about other winners were not censored.
“Nomadland,” which was named best picture on Sunday evening, was originally slated for an April 23 release in China. But it did not open last week following the controversy regarding Zhao’s reported comments, according to the AP, and is not currently scheduled for widespread release in the country.