They're even trying to stop newspapers from putting the numbers 6 and 4 together:
On the twentieth anniversary of June 4th, the mainland media are under tremendous pressure from the Publicity Department to screen for any related content to a hitherto unimaginable extent.
According to information, some newspapers have demanded their reporters to use the numbers 6 and 4 in their reports. Even if they need to cited, they cannot appear simultaneously within the article. In any case, they definitely cannot be used in the headlines in case the Publicity Department misunderstands.
Last year, there were two instances of June 4th-related incidents. In the first case, Beijing News published some photos of the work of former Associated Press photographer Liu Heungsing which included a photo of injured persons being taken to the hospital on June 4th. The other case is when Southern Metropolis Daily reported on unusual weather in Guangdong province with the headline of "4 storms in June."
In both cases, the principals insisted that it was carelessness. This caused the Publicity Department some headaches because there was no proof that someone was deliberately challenging the central government on its stance.
In order to avoid any embarrassing repeats, certain media have decided to go for the overkill in demanding that reporters and editors avoid the use '6' or '4' during this sensitive period.
According to information, the Internet censorship has clearly intensified. In the past, netizens can discuss the June 4th incident by butting certain meaning words or symbols between June and 4th to deceive the filtering software. This method is no longer effective, because even the single mention of either 6 or 4 is enough to arouse scrutiny. Therefore, the media may not be over-reacting by being allergic to the two numbers.
Many veteran reporters have even decided to go on vacation. Even if they have an explosive news story on hand, they would rather wait until after June 4th in case the authorities misunderstand that they were trying to cause trouble.-From Ming Pao, translated by ESWN
I've talked to a few friends and other miscellaneous people about this, and really, there's not a whole lot of awareness. Some people know what happened on 6/4 (many are younger university graduates) but for the most part the reaction is either "everyone makes mistakes, let's move on" or "I don't really know enough about it to really say anything". You might as well be asking someone about that time they got drunk and made out with an ugly chick: they admit it happened, but either they don't really know the details or they're uncomfortable about it. Mostly, they just want to change the subject.
Anyways, point is that the government's done a great job of battening down the hatches and stopping the flow of information. I'm working off a proxy server right now, so that's why there's no picture for this post (too much hassle) and some of the links might not work (lemme know if they don't). It's been super annoying getting to news about the event, and for some people it's just not going to be worth the effort.
So by and large, in the days leading up to the anniversary of such a landmark moment in history, life has gone on as if nothing ever happened. And scarier still, we're getting cut off from things that are happening right now, like the riots in HK. It's now 20 years later, and the government's still up to their old tricks. And they're still working.
Postscript: There are a whole bunch of "China censorship = China evil" articles floating around, but that's not what I'm trying to get across. Of course I think it's the wrong thing to do, but from my view, the government is mainly concerned with covering its own ass. They fear that if they let this out, the backlash will significantly hurt them--and probably that, after 20 years of covering up, the backlash may even be stronger than it originally would have been. Either way, they've effectively backed themselves into a corner. Let it out and feel the wrath of 1.3 billion angry citizens, or keep it under wraps and let other countries glare at you and say you're evil. Not really a hard choice.
Postscript II: The Chinese government's "Great Firewall" is keenly aware of the power of the internet here: unlike in the Western world, where daily topics get a second life on the internet, many things instead go from the internet to daily life, like the cao ni ma--it started as an inside-joke type video but it's quickly gained hold in the "real" world with t-shirts and dolls.
