From June 25-27, 2025, PRC censors engaged in an “extensive IO effort” to remove netizens’ posts sharing anti-Israel content from the Iranian Embassy in China’s Weibo account, even though the original embassy post was not censored. This effort resulted in 5,056 removals, with 59% being Level V censorship (meaning the content was directly linked to the original post) and 39% being Level III (comments or shares related to the original post). The posts removed most often called Israel a “Zionist” and “the devil,” with one notable example being a post about a Belarusian Jewish man allegedly assaulting an 18-month-old Iranian child at an airport. This likely suggests a concerted effort by China to manage online sentiment and prevent the spread of anti-Israel content, likely to maintain neutrality and avoid escalating tensions with Iran.
