In the lead up to the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, reports are surfacing that Chinese officials may have blocked access to major online social networking platforms, including Twitter, Flickr and Microsoft’s new Bing search engine. Expecting an outpouring of anti-government sentiment, Beijing has apparently applied a URL keyword filter to prevent any online rabble-rousing.

This is not the first time that the Chinese government has attempted to silence discourse online. Following the Tibetan protests last spring, China blocked YouTube apparently to stop users from viewing a series of videos showing Chinese police forces beating handcuffed Tibetan prisoners. Chinese officials, who have yet to admit to any wrongdoing in connection with the 1989 Tiananmen protest, have also banned the delivery of foreign newspapers and on Monday blacked out all BBC News broadcasts.

photo credit: BWJones’s Flickr photostream (creative commons)