China's censorship stretched to the limit by protests

The death on Wednesday of former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin added a layer of complexity to efforts to police public discourse. In several protest-themed chat groups that sprang up this week on the messaging app Telegram, messages were posted saying Jiang's death presented an opportunity for protesters to gather in the name of mourning. On Weibo, censors moved quickly to scrub comments praising Jiang's legacy that could have been construed as criticism of Xi Jinping's authoritarian tendencies as China's current leader - but many such comments continued to circulate widely. Even before this week's protests, China's web controls were coming…