Chinese websites are censoring a phrase meaning “Kim Fatty the Third”, a nickname widely used to disparage the North Korean leader, after officials from his country reportedly conveyed their displeasure in a meeting with Chinese counterparts. Searches for the Chinese words “Jin San Pang” on the search engine Baidu and microblogging platform Weibo returned no results this week. The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, said on Wednesday that reports of the banning of Jin San Pang did not “comply with facts”. While searches for Jin San Pang returned no results this week, Baidu left untouched results for other versions of the nickname, such as Kim Fat Fat Fat. The Beijing-based company has typically said that its policy is to provide accurate search results while also complying with Chinese regulations.

Source: The Guardian November 16, 2016 10:52 UTC