“Direct Line to Zhongnanhai”- with 26 Caveats

From The Handbook for “Direct Line to Zhongnanhai” Message Board
(“直通中南海”留言板使用手册中26条禁止发表的内容)

English Translation by Human Rights in China

Rules for Leaving Messages on the Direct Line to Zhongnanhai Message Board

It is forbidden to post the following content on this message board:

1. That which counters the fundamental principles determined by the Constitution;
2. That which endangers state security, discloses state secrets, subverts state power or undermines the unity of the state;
3. That which harms the state’s honor or interests;
4. That which incites ethnic hatred or ethnic discrimination or undermines ethnic solidarity;
5. That which incites illegal gatherings, association, demonstrations, or gathering a crowd to disturb social order;
6. That which undermines state policy on religion or advocates heretical organizations or feudal superstitions;
7. That which spreads rumors, disturbs social order or undermines social stability;
8. That which spreads obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence, homicide, terrorism or instigates crime;
9. That which insults or slanders others, or encroaches on others’ legal rights and interests;
10. That which organizes or carries out illegal non-government organization activities;
11. Discriminatory remarks or news including those based on race, skin color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, region, handicaps, and economic status;
12. Other content forbidden by the law or administrative regulations;
13. News which has not yet been publicly reported or verified (to publicize events you have personally experienced, please note them down clearly and inform the message board administrator of your contact information);
14. Documents or messages that may jeopardize a third party’s rights or interests, such as (including but not limited to): virus code, hacking procedures, and software cracks;
15. Copying or plagiarizing others’ works; when reprinting or citing, please clearly note the source; posting articles that the original writer has forbidden to reprint;
16. Information lacking in rationality or good faith, unreasonable quibbling, malicious comment spamming to waste board space;
17. Messages with obviously poor writing, excessive misspellings, or obscure and vacuous content;
18. Articles with content or forms that affect the normal browsing of other users;
19. Repetitive messages, test messages, excessively personal chats, and comment spamming;
20. Information that compromises others’ privacy, deliberately mimics someone’s registered name, or misrepresents itself to be an announcement from the forum administrator;
21. Other content that undermines the order of the message board or encroaches on the interests of the message board or the online community;
22. Please do not leave messages that are repetitive or excessive in number, or post information or remarks unrelated to the message board’s main topic;
23. Please do not post any form of advertisement without obtaining the website’s permission;
24. Please do not add special symbols to message titles or content;
25. Please do not add groups of symbols such as the following to messages: ASIIC [the American Standard Code for Information Interchange], text in other character encodings, null Chinese characters, double-width Chinese characters, and keyboard-enabled symbols (symbols produced by pressing the Shift key);
26. Malicious behavior such as continuously reproducing multiple messages from the same account during a short time period or causing a broad swath of the message board to be assaulted with messages from the same account is forbidden.

Punishments for the following situations

1. In the case of messages that violate the administrative rules for the message board, the administrator has the right to remove or edit the messages.
2. In the case of users who violate the administrative rules for the message board, the administrator has the right to erase the message and to handle the situation by warning the user and blocking the user’s posting rights up to the point of canceling the user’s account.
3. In cases where the message board’s administrative rules have been seriously violated, the administrator has the right to block the user’s IP address.