China Blocks John Oliver's Name On Social Media After Xi Jinping Sketch
John Oliver's 'Last Week Tonight' segment on Xi Jinping didn't go down too well with Chinese authorities.
Any new mentions of Oliver or the name of his show, ‘Last Week Tonight’, have been blocked on China’s version of Twitter following the broadcast of the 20-minute sketch on Sunday (June 17th).
Oliver’s segment laid into Xi Jinping, who has been the country’s leader since 2012, and covered human rights abuses, what he called “dystopian levels of surveillance and persecution” of Uighurs, a Muslim minority in China’s western Xinjiang province, and the detention of Liu Xia, the wife of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo who died last year while imprisoned.
He also attacked online censorship in China, including the suppression of memes comparing Xi’s figure with that of children’s character Winnie the Pooh.
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