The Chinese government has banned George Orwell's dystopian satirical novella Animal Farm and the letter 'N' in a wide-ranging online censorship crackdown.
Experts believe the increased levels of suppression - which come just days after the Chinese Communist Party announced presidential term limits would be abolished - are a sign Xi Jinping hopes to become a dictator for life.
The China Digital Times, a California-based site covering China, reports a list of terms excised from Chinese websites by government censors includes the letter 'N', Orwell's novels Animal Farm and 1984, and the phrase 'Xi Zedong'.
The latter is a combination of President Xi and former chairman Mao Zedong's names.
[...] It was not immediately obvious why the ostensibly harmless letter 'N' had been banned, but some speculated it may either be being used or interpreted as a sign of dissent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:39AM
Yes some countries may ban foreign letters from time to time to avoid cultural encroachment (or subversion). However in this case I would think they would just ban whole Latin alphabet... but that would make it almost impossible for them to type since Chinese enter words phonetically, using a special alphabet made of modified Latin characters.