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Great firewall11/30/2023 ![]() ![]() Though censorship existed during and even predated the Republican Era (1912-1949), it has reached new structural heights in the People's Republic. IntroductionĬensorship in China is not a new phenomenon and has a deep historic reach. A few speakers cried.The opinions expressed by authors in this commentary do not necessarily represent the views of the China Institute or the University of Alberta. People lined up to share their most memorable experience. The title of the room featured three candle emoticons. ![]() I joined a room for people to mourn the blocking. Several rooms were set up immediately for people to chat it over. He continued by saying that he felt guilty about his job because it involved censorship.Ī few hours later, mainland users began to report that the app had been blocked. An employee at a big Chinese social media platform told the room that nobody should ever think that he or she could escape the government surveillance. On Monday afternoon, one room that reached Clubhouse’s maximum of 5,000 users featured speakers sharing their concerns over whether they would be questioned by authorities for speaking out on the app. “This platform offered a rare opportunity to talk about the tragedy with Chinese,” he said.Įven during the freewheeling conversation, censorship was on the minds of many. Cai, who has been in exile in France and Hong Kong, said that he had given talks to 100 to 200 people but that the audiences were often mostly non-Chinese. “It was the first time since 1989 I shared my story with so many Chinese,” he said in a phone interview. He said he hadn’t expected that so many people would be interested. Cai Chongguo, a student leader during the protests, talked for about four hours, sharing his stories and answering questions from thousands of people. Several chat rooms were devoted to the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square, a heavily censored topic on the Chinese internet. A woman from Gansu province talked about how Muslims in her hometown were portrayed as troublemakers and how she learned to understand why it was offensive to hang the Chinese national flag in a mosque. One chat room with more than 100 people from northwestern China, where I’m from, focused on their interactions with ethic minorities. (A favorite line: “As long as we have enemies everywhere, we have no enemies.”) More than 3,000 people joined a chat room that was dedicated to parodying Hu Xijin, possibly the most infamous Communist Party propagandist. A group of feminists read works by feminist writers. In another, a doctoral student in sociology talked about his experiences as a meal delivery worker. In one room, a documentary filmmaker shared his thoughts on making a film about a subculture of young migrant workers, called Smart, who try to stand out in a conformist culture through wild hair and piercings. Since Saturday, I spent nearly all my waking hours wandering from one Clubhouse chat room to another. No longer were they hearing their voices filtered through official media. One user said in a chat room about censorship that everyone could see that all those people who in the mainland were labeled dissidents, like Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters, were real people. Some users said its format made them feel more willing to share personal stories and listen to different opinions. “This is probably a unique experience for mainland online users.”Ĭlubhouse allows up to 5,000 users to join audio chat rooms that disappear once the conversation is over. “We enjoyed it with full knowledge that the excitement would be fleeting,” said Clarence Lo, a 25-year-old writer, in an interview Monday. Clubhouse gave mainland Chinese users a chance to flock to chat rooms focused on those taboos. Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, a growing number of topics have become off-limits on the Chinese internet. Big online platforms like Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were blocked long ago. Over the past two decades, Beijing has developed the most sophisticated online censorship system in the world. People who had been demonized got a chance to speak out and be humanized. Likewise, mainlanders got a chance to prove that they aren’t brainwashed drones. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu
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