If Lu Xun [ed: one of those great Chinese writers that, during the era of the Republic before 1949, challenged the norm] is still here today, first, his blog would get blocked (harmonized); next, he’d be called to the police office; and finally, he’d be imprisoned on grounds of subverting state authority.

These are not the most libre of all times. We thought that when YouTube was taken away from us in March 2009 that the worst would pass after a sensitive June anniversary three months down the road. Not only is it still invisible in China, but now, Twitter, Facebook and even the apparently-innocent foursquare has joined the queue. The censors have attacked Twitter like they’ve attacked a F@!un Gøng website, closing all API and third-party links as soon as they could find one. Meanwhile, noted blogger Han Han, who turned into a so-called “public intellectual”, is not only in public fights (with the typed word, not physically) with other “public intellectuals” so-called, but also with the censors, who have removed an increasing number of Han’s articles.

@jason5ng32 (who tweeted the Chinese tweet first, seeing it retweeted over about 50 times in all) has been particularly badly hit. He runs a Chinese-language blog Kenengba, and that has been toyed around with due to an apparently pro-Google stance. (Your tech blogger was initially pro-Google as well, but immediately changed sides once it was found out that apparently all Google was interested in was gaining publicity, fighting a proxy “Cold War 2.0″ and toying with the Chinese netizenry.)

We have to ask ourselves: has the chilling effect really gotten this bad as of late?