In China, a Reuters Partner Blocks Articles on the Tiananmen Square Massacre

A financial-information company partly owned by the news organization Thomson Reuters removed articles related to the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square massacre from the feeds of its data terminals in China last week. The move came under pressure from the Chinese government, Reuters reported Monday.

The data firm that complied with the censorship demands, Refinitiv, is Reuters’s biggest customer. It prevented some articles that included mentions of the pro-democracy demonstrations from appearing on its Eikon software and mobile app in China.

In a statement, Refinitiv pointed to legal realities in China, whose government previously blocked websites from publishing stories it deemed politically sensitive. The Chinese authorities have also denied visas to journalists working for news outlets that have published articles that were critical of the nation’s leaders.

In recent days, with the 30th anniversary of the uprising approaching, China has made efforts to quash public mentions of the day when tanks and troops moved into the Beijing plaza and crushed student-led protests. Reuters reported on Monday that the Cyberspace Administration of China, which censors online speech, had threatened to suspend Refinitiv if it did not go along with its demand to pull articles that mentioned what took place in Tiananmen Square.

In a statement, Refinitiv said, “As a global business, we comply with all our local regulatory obligations, including the requirements of our license to operate in China.”