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canopic jug writes:

Radio Free Asia is reporting on a copyright hack used by a Japanese art platform, Pixiv, to clamp down on copyright violations in red China. Copyright infringers there had duplicated the whole site's content almost verbatim, translating tags and titles along the way, and then offering the ripped off content to people in red China in place of the original. Pixiv picked up on a way to use red China's heavy handed censorship to their advantage, this time, by peppering their art with words and phrases banned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Pixiv fought back, however, with some of the site's users adding "sensitive" keywords to their artworks, including "Tiananmen massacre," which alerted the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s massive, government-backed censorship system.

Other sensitive and forbidden keywords included "Free Hong Kong," "Independence for Taiwan," and "June 4, Tiananmen Square," all of which are heavily censored terms behind China's Great Firewall.

Germany-based university lecturer Zhu Rui said the move had deliberately and ingeniously manipulated government censors in China.

"The Japanese artists being pirated on Pixiv were forced to take this action as a last resort to defend their rights," Zhu told RFA. "The pirated website was then shut down by the iron fist of the CCP, which was great to see."

This method has been used for a longer period by YouTubers in free China to prevent their videos being swiped and reposted to other platforms based within red China.

Original Submission