Anti-Communist Hackers Attack China State Media, Project Images of Tiananmen Square Massacre on TV for Four Hours

China controls all information access within its borders. Dissenters have very little means of attacking the government, but hacking has proven to be fairly successful.

On Friday, anti-communist hackers attacked state media in the eastern city of Wenzhou, according to Agence France-Presse. The unknown attackers superimposed messages on viewers' television screens with anti-Communist Party slogans and images of human rights abuses by the Chinese government and from the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Local residents expressed annoyance at the incident, reports AFP, saying, "It doesn't feel right to vent your opinions by sacrificing others' interests."

Reports say the images stayed up for around four hours. The Wenzhou branch of China Cable addressed the situation in a statement on Sina Weibo, saying it was being handled.

"At the moment some areas of Wenzhou city are receiving unusual broadcasts. Technical staff are currently trying to solve this issue. We hope viewers will understand," said the company on China's equivalent of Twitter.

However, the images and messages had already began spreading via the same social media website, according to Foreign Policy. When they first saw the bizarre messages, viewers in Wenzhou uploaded images of them to Weibo, sharing it with others around the country.

According to the magazine, the attack happened at around 7:30 p.m., when viewers began uploading images.

"Friends, do not cooperate with Communist devils," read one message.

Others called for the liberation of Liu Xiaobo and other human rights activists and dissenters.

The local cable provider took to Weibo by 9:30 p.m., reports Foreign Policy, to inform users how to remove the message from their screens. According to The Telegraph, the local government released statements denouncing the attack by "lawbreakers" who "released malicious information"

Soon after, government censors began scrubbing the Internet of any sign of the hacking incident, according to Foreign Policy. Search terms pertaining to the incident, images and news articles by other media were blocked or deleted.