Li Qiaochu: A Small Episode in the Marriage Application Procedure 02

On May 23, 2026, I published a Weibo article titled “520, Yet I Can’t Say ‘I Love You’” (I could only write “we” to get the article published), documenting how I was interviewed and questioned by the official media outlet Qilu Evening News after making public the difficulties I encountered in applying for marriage, but how the article was subsequently handled for “violations” and my appeal on the platform failed.

Two days after it was posted, on the evening of May 25, the Weibo platform displayed: “The content you posted was not actively handled by the platform, but the post may contain undesirable information relating to sensitive current social affairs. You have been ordered to handle it, and for the time being only you can view it.” How should I understand this statement?—“It wasn’t us who determined that your content violated the rules, so don’t come looking for trouble with us.”

I thought I would submit an appeal on Weibo to ask about it, but as soon as I entered the link to the content, I was directly prevented from appealing... Helplessly, I could only write a brief feedback comment.

After taking a close look at the content review details, I saw that Weibo’s content optimization advice said to “adopt a rational, objective and impartial attitude.” The registration of marriages for prisoners, which I wrote about in my article, is itself an important component of the prison system’s policy of assistance through family ties. Isn’t paying attention to this issue and documenting the difficulties encountered during the application process precisely related to the public interest?

Moreover, all of the reports by Qilu Evening News on marriage registration for prisoners that I cited in my article came from publicly published official reports. The fact that Qilu Evening News and the Shandong Provincial Department of Justice jointly established an all-media legal-aid service station to provide legal consultations for prisoners’ family members is also publicly verifiable information. Furthermore, these reports remain publicly displayed on Qilu Evening News’s platform to this day and have never been withdrawn.

As for the portions concerning my own experiences—the readership data in the article came from a creator notification sent to me by the Meipian platform, and the process through which Qilu Evening News contacted me for an interview is documented in Meipian private messages and WeChat records. I also verified the other party’s identity by checking their registration number on the China Journalists Network. If any of this contains factually distorted or maliciously speculative content, the relevant institutions and platforms could have asked me to make corrections or held me accountable, but none of them has ever raised an objection.

Marriage is a basic civil right protected by the Civil Code, and documenting my experience of applying for marriage registration in accordance with the law does not involve violating any laws or regulations.

So exactly which passage or sentence in the article constitutes “undesirable information relating to sensitive current social affairs”?

Weibo’s notification also explicitly stated that “the content you posted was not actively handled by the platform.” In other words, Weibo itself did not believe there was a problem with my content. But the notification did not say which department it was or what rules it had relied on. I want to report the problem and understand the reason, but Weibo does not allow me to appeal.

It is simply so despairing: the Meipian app has banned me from speaking for 30 days; the Weibo platform will not allow others to see the article, while also saying that the decision was not theirs; the department that made the decision will not come forward; and I am not even given a channel through which I can argue my case. Last year, I registered accounts on the two social platforms Meipian and Weibo, where I posted some lyrics I had written, accounts of my trauma-healing experiences, and updates on my case appeals. Now, simply for truthfully describing the practical difficulties of applying for marriage, I am gradually being “socially killed.”

It feels as though the light in front of me can illuminate only the next 50 meters, but I still have confidence that I can walk the entire distance. I have no way to see the finish line all at once; I can only take each step on the road before me, and the distance ahead will naturally grow brighter little by little.

(If things were not so difficult, who would want to post motivational messages every day?)