On Sunday, the host of Last Week Tonight mocked the Chinese government’s internet censorship using Winnie the Poor as an example. Chinese President Xi Jinping seems to dislike comparisons between his physical appearance and that of A.A. Milne’s famous ursine, so a firewall keeps the Chinese people from doing searches about Winnie the Pooh. “Clamping down on Winnie the Pooh comparisons doesn’t exactly project strength,” Oliver quipped.
Now Oliver himself has been added on the block list, since queries for his name also produce no results.
China's Weibo has banned all new posts mentioning John Oliver (who mocked exactly this kind of internet censorship) https://t.co/aFGsQvjVom pic.twitter.com/EVi1Ylnu0i
— Alan Wong (@alanwongw) June 20, 2018
Aside from internet censorship, Oliver needled the Chinese government on a range of human rights abuses, ranging from the treatment of Uighur Muslims to the jailing of dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Oliver also questioned Xi’s removal of term limits for the presidency. “It’s worth knowing that the term limits he had successfully eliminated were put in place for a pretty good reason, specifically to avoid another Mao, under whose regime some horrific things happened in China,” the comedian observed.