Imperial Confessions faces backlash after featuring posts targeting Chinese students
Two posts on Chinese students’ language skills and another mocking them prompted a wave of criticism and threats.
A popular Instagram-based confessions page for Imperial students was faced with a deluge on online criticism after it posted and “pinned” content stereotyping Chinese students at Imperial.
The account (@imperial_confessions_), which is not affiliated with the College, has gained over 5000 followers since its creation in November 2024, including many Imperial students and student societies. It is known for posting anonymous text submissions on topics ranging from campus romance to mental health struggles.
In early February, Imperial Confessions shared a post that read: “How come when chinese girls [sic] come into lectures late they duck and run to the nearest seat like they’re under enemy fire.”
Last week, the account shared two other posts complaining about the allegedly poor level of English of some Chinese students at Imperial. The first post, shared on 2nd March, started with “To all the chinese people who can barely speak english how tf do u manage in classes [sic]”, and moved on to asking whether those concerned “have personal translators”, “translate it all live digitally”, or “even do exams”.
The second post, shared on 6th March, urged Chinese students to “think twice” about studying at Imperial, saying, “This is not all Chinese students, but so many are translating recordings of class, using each other to translate, copy and pasting AI in projects, and not communicating because they physically can’t in group projects. Please think about this before moving to a country where you can’t speak the language.”
Criticism accumulated under these now-deleted posts, particularly after Imperial Confessions pinned two of them at the top of its content carousel. “The problem is the active choice of pinning posts about Chinese people, it is a conscious choice and it promotes hatred and mockery as entertainment,” reads one comment with over a thousand likes.
A 2024 study by the International Student Barometer found that 41% of Chinese students in the UK reported having faced ethnic discrimination, a rate higher than for any other student nationality. Discrimination against Chinese students appears to have increased sharply following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Imperial Confessions shared an initial apology in their story denying any discriminatory intentions. It said the account’s posts are pinned “entirely based on engagement” and promised to “moderate more carefully” in the future.
In a later statement, it added, “We want to apologise directly to Chinese students and others affected. Regardless of the wider mix of content on the page, these posts should have been handled differently and not amplified in the way they were using our simple procedures.”
That statement was received poorly, attracting close to a thousand comments. “This statement is simply astonishing. It ingeniously downplays racial discrimination as merely a matter of poor management,” one user wrote. “Wow. Imagine Chinese people are actually humans with their own interests and struggles instead of an abstract EDI quota,” another commented. Users called for the account to pin the apology, and the contributors behind the posts to be expelled from the College.
A 2024 Report from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) reported that “[s]ome Chinese students feel like they are being treated as revenue sources rather than as valued members of the community.” That impression was echoed in discussions prompted by the posts, with students emphasising the “extremely high tuition fees” international students pay to fund British universities.
The HEPI report also found that Chinese students in the UK were on average less proficient in English than students from other developing countries, and that high shares of Chinese students within some universities and a preference for Chinese social apps like WeChat resulted in “ethnic clustering”. “It is very natural for an international student to choose to engage in social activities within their own ethnicities,” one reply to Imperial Confession’s apology explained, “because they share the same language, cultural background, etc.”
Comments containing insults and death threats also accumulated under the Imperial Confessions’ posts. “Your whole bloody family should drop dead,” one user wrote, while others called for the page admin to commit suicide: “So you know the Queen’s Tower in IC right? jump from it, done.” Imperial Confessions said they received “over 200 messages targeting us,” including “harassment, racist language, and violent threats,” and intend to report such comments to the police.
The controversy was relayed on Instagram, as well as other social media platforms like Reddit and LinkedIn. Posts and comments denouncing the account sprung up Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media platform also known as RedNote, with some receiving thousands of likes. “This has been widely circulated in China and on China social media to let everyone know what a university you are,” one Instagram user wrote.
An Imperial College London spokesperson said: “Any form of racist or hateful behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated at Imperial, and all incidents are taken extremely seriously.
“We encourage members of Imperial’s community to use the Report and Support tool to report any incidents of unwelcome behaviour, such as bullying, harassment, and racial discrimination.”
