The endearing but dimwitted bear ‘Winnie the Pooh’ has been blocked on Chinese social networks over the weekend. Though the authorities did not clarify the reason behind the crackdown, the self-described “bear of very little brain” has been compared with the Chinese President, Xi Jinping in the past in memes.
While the pictures and the Chinese characters for Winnie the Pooh were still allowed on the Twitter-like platform, Weibo, comments referencing “Little Bear Winnie”, Pooh’s Chinese name, show up as an error saying the user could not continue as “this content is illegal.”
‘Winnie the Pooh’ stickers have also been deleted from WeChat’s “sticker gallery.”
But user-generated gifs of the bear still exist on the popular messaging app.
Comparisons between Xi and Pooh began in 2013. After that, in 2014, a snap of Xi handshaking with Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe was compared with an image of Pooh and his gloomy donkey friend Eeyore. In 2015, Global Risk Insights called an image of Xi standing up through the roof of a parade car compared with a picture of a Pooh toy car – “China’s most censored photo” of the year.
Many Chinese social media users on Monday were testing the limits imposed on the bear who groans “oh, bother” when things don’t go his way.
