As Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate, lay dying in a heavily-guarded hospital last month, there was little mention of his fate in China. For many younger Chinese, Liu is an unknown figure, the culmination of years of intense censorship of his life and works. The tiny minority who did attempt to express outrage online at Liu's treatment, or commemorate him after he succumbed to liver cancer on July 14, saw their posts blocked and images deleted. On Weibo, China's most popular Twitter-like platform, users were prevented from posting messages with the words "Nobel," "liver cancer," "RIP" or the candle emoji, according to researchers at Toronto's Citizen Lab and Hong Kong's Weiboscope.
