Abstract
Chinese officials have blocked outside access to a number of online bulletin boards operated by universities. Such bulletin boards have become popular vehicles for discussion about topics including politics, pop culture, and pornography, subjects which Chinese authorities have not been shy about censoring. Tsinghua University's Shuimu Tsinghua bulletin board was one of those restricted recently, joining bulletin boards at Wuhan University and Nankai University, as well as one at Peking University that was shut down entirely. According to a student from Tsinghua University who asked not to be named, the Ministry of Education's reasoning for blocking outside access was "because the bulletin board was only supposed to be a platform for internal exchange within the university." He added, "Students are calm about it, but it seems that non-student users are angry because they can no longer get access."