The members of several LGBT groups lost access to their accounts late Tuesday. Following the abrupt closure, several students shared screenshots, to which WeChat replied that the accounts were blocked "after receiving relevant complaints". "All content has been blocked and therefore the account has been put out of service", it also stated within the notice. the corporate also cited a violation of state regulation on the management of online public accounts.
"Many folks suffered at an equivalent time", press agency Reuters quoted an account manager of 1 group as saying. However, people quoted within the Reuters story declined to be identified thanks to the sensitivity of the difficulty .
"They censored us with none warning. All folks are wiped out", the account manager also said.
Many LGBT rights supporters also took to social media to protest against the closure of students' accounts. "The era is regressing. China wasn't like this 10 years ago. Gradually we're losing all our freedoms", said a user on Weibo, as per ANI report.
However, some online nationalists have welcomed the move, who claimed that they're travel by "anti-China forces". "I support the blocking of the accounts...why should we keep these public accounts travel by anti-China forces in our education institutions? Are we expecting them to brainwash university students who have yet to make their values?" ANI quoted one user as saying.
In 1997, China decriminalised homecuality, but not until 2001, the govt classified it as a "mental disorder".
However, during a controversial ruling in March this year, a Chinese court upheld a university's description of homosexuality as a "psychological disorder" and said that it had been not a factual error but merely an "academic view".
The Cyberspace Administration of China recently pledged to wash up the web to guard minors and crackdown on social media groups deemed a "bad influence".
Traditionally, LGBT student groups don't get the support of university authorities in their work to boost awareness about the community, despite the decriminalisation.
In May, the loyalty of LGBT university groups to the govt and therefore the Communist Party was discussed between student groups, university representatives of the Communist Youth League - a department responsible of student affairs travel by the Chinese Communist Party , consistent with three sources with knowledge of the matter, Reuters had reported.
During the meeting, the scholars were asked if they were anti-Party or anti-China, and whether any of their funds had originated from abroad, it also reported.
