Voices 404’d Over the Past Year

On 4 April last year, Foodthink published a “Collection of Deleted Posts”. Since then, every time a post was taken down, colleagues would crack a self-soothing in-joke: “Next year’s 404 will be 404’d again.”

But two years of 404s are not entirely the same. In 2024, most of Foodthink’s deleted posts were not current media hot topics or traditionally “sensitive topics” — for instance, a roundup of 2024 domestic media and academic coverage, research, and creative works on food delivery and e-commerce platforms; a piece on the social security measures Singapore introduced for platform workers. So each time a post was pulled, the editorial team was caught off guard, sometimes unable to make sense of the logic or motivation behind the deletion.

But among the posts deleted over the past year, two were topics that had been in the public eye at the time or over a longer stretch, covered by both institutional and independent media. Yet at some point, everyone went quiet.

To safeguard food security, we have a permanent basic farmland protection red line; to protect the environment, we have an ecological protection red line. But in the public discourse, we cannot see such a clear line. All we can see is a single message: “This content is unavailable due to a violation.” Beyond that, we can only piece things together through each post that ends up as a 404.

Below are the articles that returned a 404 in 2025. The prompts let you read the first half of each one’s life.

404 Not Found I.

This is actually a response to a book published that year about delivery work, Transitional Labour. As a PhD in nutrition whose research focuses on how socio-economic relationships affect population health, the author examines, from a nutritional-health standpoint, whether working as a delivery rider really makes one more “short-lived.” She concludes by emphasising that excessive labour is not limited to delivery riders alone; many people in modern society also experience irregular meals, intense workloads, and unstable income — a form of labour that is, like delivery work, “instrumental rather than value-based.” The author invites readers to reflect, through the riders’ predicament, on a question: why have food security and economic growth not made it easier to eat properly?

Leave a comment “丑团” on the Official Account “Foodthink” to read the full article 🙏

404 Not Found II.

The 2025 autumn harvest in North China was hit by weeks of unbroken rain. Corn could not be brought in and began to mould almost overnight. “North China’s prolonged autumn rain” hit the trending list, and media outlets across different platforms picked up the story in succession. Foodthink visited six agricultural counties across Henan and Hebei and found that at every stage of the corn chain — from planting to sale — growers, buyers, and local governments had tried every means at their disposal to cope. Yet regardless of farm size, resources, or equipment, virtually every corn grower was still left to absorb the losses from reduced yields, falling prices, and mould damage.

The article was published on 22 October 2025 and deleted on 24 October. To our knowledge, posts on some other platforms were also taken down. Perhaps when a topic first breaks, everyone is free to discuss it, but at some point, all voices are silenced again. Whether you are a content creator or a reader seeking the truth, this is an era where everything comes down to speed.

Leave a comment “撑伞” (hold an umbrella) on the Official Account “Foodthink” to read the full article 🙏

404 Not Found III.

Much like “North China’s prolonged autumn rain,” the rural heating issue in Hebei was another prominent rural story this past winter.

On 5 January, the Farmer’s Daily Official Account published “The Rural Heating Issue in Hebei Can No Longer Be Delayed,” noting that on Minor Cold — the coldest day of the year — residents in some rural areas of Hebei would rather endure the freezing cold than switch on their heating.

Foodthink quickly published a commentary in response. The author is from Hebei and was once an environmental journalist who witnessed the series of forceful measures the government took to combat Beijing’s smog. These included the 2013 “Air Ten” action plan to tackle air pollution, after which the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region launched large-scale coal-to-gas and coal-to-electricity conversions. That same year in Hebei, the difficulty of rural heating first surfaced, attributed at the time to an insufficient natural gas supply.

Twelve years on, the natural gas supply problem has been solved, but the price has risen with it. Farmers with limited incomes — particularly the elderly left behind in the villages — still cannot keep warm.

When urban heating is reliable, yet some rural areas face higher costs just to meet the bare minimum conditions for survival, the author asks: why are farmers always the victims of “one-size-fits-all” policies? And calls for a green transition that does not come at the expense of vulnerable groups such as farmers — only a fair and just transition can be sustainable.

The article was published on 9 January this year and deleted on 18 January, surviving eight days longer than the Farmer’s Daily piece “The Rural Heating Issue in Hebei Can No Longer Be Delayed.” The farmers’ bodies are cold; our hearts are cold.

Leave a comment “一刀切” (one-size-fits-all) on the Official Account “Foodthink” to read the full article 🙏

404 Not Found IV.

Based on fieldwork conducted across multiple provinces last year, Foodthink published an original article in early 2026: “Who Has Lowered the ‘Standard’ of High-Standard Farmland?”, which attracted comments from practitioners and researchers in agriculture and engineering from across the country. They shared their observations on local high-standard farmland construction and use, confirming that the problem of inadequate “standards” in high-standard farmland, as mentioned in the article, is present in villages across south-western, north-western, and central China.

Foodthink compiled the information provided by readers and published “The Nation Debates High-Standard Farmland” on 21 January.

What kind of farmland transformation can truly safeguard food security? Foodthink argues that before undertaking rural construction and redevelopment, we should first humbly listen to the voices of farmers on the ground and dispel the myth of large-scale agriculture. The article was deleted ten days after publication. It was then republished; click here to read the full article.

In addition to the several articles mentioned above being taken down by the platform, we have also received more than one phone call over the past year requesting deletions or content modifications. It was through this process that we came to realise that a bout of extreme weather, a single field operation, or even a seemingly ordinary article that merely states facts that may already be widely known can make those who create the problems — or who should be solving them — sit on pins and needles. Everyone seems to be “guarding” their own patch of ground, yet the space for public discussion is gradually shrinking amid this kind of tug-of-war.

For Foodthink, every article is not just about “publishing” — more importantly, an article can serve as an entry point that allows stakeholders with different positions to exchange information here and engage in deeper discussion. Much of the real value lies in the exchanges in the comment sections, but these voices, too, have been dwindling after being repeatedly 404’d.

Over the past year, we have noticed that comments on Official Account articles are being blocked faster and faster. Sometimes a reader leaves a thoughtful comment that is deleted almost immediately — we have not even had time to see what they wrote, and can only see the backend display: “Comment no longer visible due to suspected violation.”

In other words, readers appear to be able to leave comments, but not every comment is visible to others — many voices exist only on the commenter’s own screen.

Over time, some people stop leaving comments and stop trying to express themselves at all. Gradually, voices grow fewer, and silence becomes the norm.

All we can do, perhaps, is to say as much as we still are allowed to say, and hold onto the space that has not yet disappeared. As for those voices that never got to be seen, they should not be treated as though they never existed. In any case, we do not want to find ourselves, on some future Qingming Festival, paying tribute to the death of “public space.”

Compiled by: Kai Rui

Editor: Tianle