TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Much has been written about China’s muted official response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month.

Analysts have scrambled to make sense of China’s diplomatic double-speak that both avoids condemning Moscow (or using the word “invasion”) while hitting all of Beijing’s typical talking points about respecting the territorial sovereignty of all states, including Ukraine.

Some have called it China’s “murky position,” others “pro-Russian neutrality.” As of Thursday (March 3), Beijing seems to be attempting to play “peacemaker” as it signals a willingness to play a role in a ceasefire.

While Chinese state media have been given express instructions to censor content that is unfavorable to Russia or pro-Western, the cacophony of responses on China’s social media landscape have run the gamut from outraged academics condemning Russian aggression to ultra-nationalists using the opportunity to taunt Taiwan and male netizens making lewd jokes about female refugees.

A minor diplomatic row even played out between Britain and Russia on Chinese platform Weibo after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s account posted a Chinese-language post urging Putin to step back from the brink. The Russian embassy in Beijing later issued a rebuke, calling the post “absurd.”

Now, with so much focus on China’s reaction to the conflict, a report from Business Insider has shed light on how the country’s social media platforms are mediating the conflict in their information ecosystems.

China’s leading short-video platform TikTok has blocked the accounts of Russian state-run TV network RT, and Moscow-based Sputnik news agency, but only in EU countries, an anonymous company spokesperson revealed. This is not because the ByteDance-owned platform is biased against Russian coverage but rather that it must align with Brussels’ new ban on Kremlin-backed media.

Meanwhile, on Sunday (Feb. 27) Weibo — the Chinese equivalent of Twitter — confirmed it had taken down over 4,000 posts that were making light of the war in Ukraine. The platform, which has roughly 573 million monthly users, said it had banned 10,000 accounts for posting such content.

Tencent, the unicorn which owns Weixin (and its international version, WeChat), circulated a post on Friday (Feb. 25) outlining guidelines for discussing the war. It requested users be objective and refrain from inappropriate humor (referencing sexist jokes about female refugees) or misinformation (calling out users who claimed university credits could be obtained by fighting in the conflict.)