20101019 China’s Twittering classes revolt

China’s Twittering classes revolt

By Hu Yong 胡泳

Two weeks ago, Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China. That award comes at a crucial moment in Chinese politics, as it may well become a stepping stone on China’s long march toward greater freedom.

Yet few voices in the Chinese media are discussing Liu’s Nobel Prize. The government’s propaganda department has ordered major media to keep the news from spreading to the general public by imposing strict censorship. In fact, on China Central Television’s widely viewed 7pm national newscast, not a word on Liu was mentioned on the day he received the prize.

Despite this news blackout, China’s blogosphere and microblogs exploded after Liu was announced as the winner. For example, on Sina’s microblog site, bloggers used pictures, euphemisms and English or traditional Chinese characters to avoid censorship.

Twitter-style microblogging is extremely popular in China. Twitter.com was officially blocked last year, following the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the riots in Xinjiang that summer. Soon afterwards, its most famous Chinese clone, Fanfou.com, was also closed down, leaving 1 million registered users homeless. Nevertheless, although Twitter can be accessed in China only via proxy servers, it still plays a vital role in Chinese Internet life because of its ability to connect different news sources and social activists.

Indeed, Twitter is the only place where people can talk freely about Liu’s Nobel Prize. A search of the hash tag “#Liuxiaobo” shows that relevant messages pop up hundreds of times per minute.

More generally, Twitter has become a powerful tool for Chinese citizens as they increasingly play a role in reporting local news in their communities. However, the social revolution brought by microblogging might be even more important than the communication revolution. Indeed, here Chinese Twitter users lead the world, using it for everything from social resistance, civic investigation and monitoring public opinion, to creating black satire, “organizing without organizations” in the Guangdong anti-incineration movement and mailing postcards to prisoners of conscience.