Life in Shanghai

Coronavirus: Shanghai residents evade censors to expose life during lockdown 

People in China's business capital are flooding social media with content documenting the widespread backlash towards the city's strict lockdown. Censors have been unable to keep up.

Under China's strict "zero-COVID" policy, most of Shanghai's population of 26 million remains under a strict lockdown, with people depending on government deliveries of food and supplies.

As residents express their discontent with the government, more and more images and videos of Shanghai's lockdown, depicting the frustration of people who have been confined to their homes for weeks, are making it past the censors.

Families have been separated after testing positive for COVID, and essential medical treatment has been delayed. On Tuesday, around 20% of the city's residents outside of the strict quarantine zones were permitted to leave their homes for a brief period.  

Videos from last week show neighborhoods filled with the noise of residents protesting by banging pots and pans out their windows, demanding authorities provide more food and supplies; others show men yelling "give me back my freedom."

One video features a woman going through a neighborhood with a loudspeaker, warning residents not to protest, and claiming the backlash towards Shanghai's lockdown policy is a "conspiracy initiated by external forces."

"We hope everyone can distinguish right from wrong and express reasonable demands in the right way," the woman shouts.