tear down this firewall: twitter as a political tool in china

8/9/2019 Tear Down This Firewall: Twitter as a Political Tool in China

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TWITTER AS A POLITICAL TOOL IN CHINA 1

Tear Down This Firewall: Twitter as a Political Tool in China

Edna Zhou

Elizabethtown College


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Abstract

In the last three years, the microblogging platform Twitter has become popular in

mainstream culture as a method of allowing users to provide status updates to the rest of

the world via Internet and mobile phones. While some of these updates, or tweets, may

be mundane and trivial, these updates can play a bigger role in citizen journalism, where

they have begun to create and break the news while simultaneously defining what is

important. In China, Twitter is proving to be an effective political tool against censorship

and the Great Firewall, which restricts access to subversive sites and regulates the flow

of information. This paper will provide an overview of censorship in China, and using a

case study of tweets from the Xinjiang Riots of July 2009, will explain how Twitter has

become more than just a website; it allows voices to speak out from behind the Great

Firewall and poses a threat to the Chinese government and censorship on a whole.


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Introduction and Literature Review

It began as a simple side project. For years, engineer Jack Dorsey wanted to create

a way for people to share simple real-time status updates with friends from wherever they

happened to be (Dorsey 2006). While working at a small podcasting company, he finally

presented his idea to manager and fellow engineer Evan Williams. In early 2006, the two

launched Twitter as a side project to their work (Williams 2007).

The idea behind Twitter was to combine these short status updates with short

message service, more commonly known as SMS or texts. In 140 characters or

fewer, users could update their status either from their mobile phone or the Internet,

which would then be sent and available to view to anyone interested in following that

persons status. Through these status updates, called tweets, people could share in real

time, through Twitter, the moments in their lives, from the trivial to the monumental

(Williams 2009). Work on Twitter began on March 22, 2006, with Dorseys first tweet,

just setting up my twttr. The product began as an internal messaging system within

Odeo employees, and in July 2006, a full-scale version was launched. In 2007, Twitter

was spun off into its own company (Lennon 2009). What no one at Twitter could have

anticipated was the tremendous impact Twitter would have on the world. Today,

everyone from politicians to celebrities to largely respected news outlets like CNN and

the New York Times turn to Twitter to provide and receive news and information

(Williams 2009). Specifically, this paper will demonstrate the impact that Twitter has had

in China, proving itself to be a political tool in increasing transparency in China and

breaking down the Chinese governments method of censorship via the Great Firewall.

Twitter is part of a larger concept known as microblogging. Where regular


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weblog (or blog) posts may range in any length and are usually are titled, microblogging

involves extremely short updates in comparison. These could be anything from a status

update, photograph, link to a video, or quick blog post. The idea is that the message is

short, and the collection of your microblog posts appears to be a stream of consciousness.

While blog posts take time to create and edit and publish, microblog posts should be

spontaneous and require no more than minutes to update. Common microblogging

platforms include Posterous and Tumblr; the difference between these and Twitter is that

the former are multi-media formats and known as lifestreams; Twitter is simply text

updates. While Twitter updates may include links to photographs and videos, what

followers receive in an update is pure text.

Twitter also plays into the larger growing movement ofparticipatory journalism.

Bowman and Willis (2003) have defined participatory journalism as

The act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process ofcollecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. The intent

of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and

relevant information that a democracy requires.

While audience participation in the reporting of news has been around since the early

1990s in the form ofcivic journalism, when news organizations collaborated with

participants to engage in reporting and dialogue, it was criticized for setting the agenda

and moderating the conversation (Bowman and Willis 2003). Participatory journalism is

completely bottom-to-top, with little oversight from editors and no involvement from

formal journalists (Bowman and Willis 2003). Furthermore, citizen journalism, while a

part of participatory journalism, differs in that citizen journalism is specifically when the

people are responsible for gathering content, visioning, producing and publishing the

news product without the involvement of paid employees (Nip 2006). This means that in


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comparison to previous methods of news reporting, the audience has changed from a one-

to-many pattern to a many-to-many pattern.

According to Brezovsek (1995), one of four main reasons people participate in

journalism is to refer attention towards a specific activity, which is further aimed towards

influencing government or authorities in general. Furthermore, according to Tremayne

(2007), when people blog to bring attention to certain items and ignore others, these are

known asfilterblogs, and the two most common types of filter blogs are those on

technology and politics and current events. Therefore in citizen journalism, the audience

decides what they want to report, the audience decides what stories to pick up, and the

audience decides what is important. The public can now set the agenda.

There also exists an us and them dichotomy in traditional news reporting

(Allan, Sonwalkar, & Carter 2007) that becomes less distinct in citizen journalism. Until

recent years, only news bureaus like CNN and the Associated Press were allowed

privileged access to report in certain areas, especially abroad, and therefore the viewers

and readers at home had only those agencies to rely on for information (Damon 2010).

Now that those exclusivity rights have been dismantled, and with the advent of citizen

journalism, especially where human rights issues are concerned, on-the-ground reporting

and engagement of the citizen journalists reduces the space between the audience and the

actions being reported. Examples of citizen journalism may range from small posts like

mobile uploads to sites like YouTube, personal blogs on topics, and collaborative

participatory journalism sites like CNNs iReport. These reports also allow for as-it-

happens reporting, thereby enabling others of the grand world audience to watch events

as they unfold in real time, rather than waiting until the next days newspaper report.


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However, this is a major negative aspect to live blogging and citizen journalism, as the

ability to fact-check and contain sensitive or incorrect news items becomes much more

difficult. Examples from 2009 include H1N1 swine flu hysteria, the saga of Balloon

Boy, and inaccurate reports of a suspects death following the shootings in Fort Hood,

Texas (McFadden 2009).

In the past, this top-to-bottom distribution of news allowed for agenda-setting to

occur, where those in charge of the news decided what information was important to

disseminate to the public. This was done through the method ofgatekeeping. The term

was first coined by Kurt Lewin in 1947, who described how a wife or mother would

decide what food goes on the family dinner table. White (1961) later applied it towards

journalism, describing the process in which a news item can go through various

communication channels in a group. When examining the effect this had on the public

audience, McCombs and Shaw (1976) found the audience attached importance to a news

item based upon the emphasis placed upon it by the media. Therefore, the gatekeeper is

the one who monitors what information is allowed to be distributed to the audience, and

thereby sets the agenda.

In China, the gatekeeper is not just one person or department, it is a country-wide

technological infrastructure of censorship put in place by the government and commonly

referred to as the Great Firewall, or GFW. The GFW is actually part of a larger scheme of

information control known as the Golden Shield Project, which is the overall strategy of

how China controls and monitors the Internet, screening what is available to users

(Fallows 2008). Furthermore, all forms of media- print, radio, and television- are state-

run. Foreign newspapers exist, but are restricted and monitored carefully. In the last ten


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years, however, access to the Internet has become widely available and Chinese blogs

have gained in popularity, making it much harder for the government to keep a tight

control on information coming in and out of the country.

First, it is important to identify what the Chinese government exactly censors.

There is no definitive list of what is accessible at any given time; sites are blocked and

unblocked as the government sees necessary. For example, in the months leading up to

the Beijing 2008 Olympics, websites like Wikipedia and the BBC were suddenly

accessible, though up until that point they had been blocked. Conversely, in the

immediate aftermath of the Xinjiang riots, the search term Urumqi showed no results

on Chinese search engines. In September 2009, after photos were posted on TwitPic of a

Xinjiang restaurant explosion in Beijing, all of TwitPic was suddenly blocked (and

remains so at this time of writing). There are also sites that are consistently blocked.

Blogging hosts like WordPress and Blogger are wholly inaccessible, and those that do

work, like Moveable Type, are consistently, frustratingly slow and often experience

heavy delays and monitoring.

The Chinese government claims their control over the Internet is in place to fight

pornography, piracy and other illegal activity. However, there are deeper intentions: the

government fears that social media sites allow subversive citizens to cause trouble

(MacManus 2010). The Peoples Daily, the CCPs official newspaper, has blamed the

unrest that followed the Iranian elections on online warfare launched by America, via

YouTube video and Twitter micro-blogging (LaFreniere 2010). The

ZhongguoGuofangbao, the official newspaper of Chinese national defense, has declared

that sites like Twitter and Youtube are convenient and powerful tools for western hostile


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forces to subvert the country and should not be underestimated (Damon 2010). Any site

deemed offensive or subversive is shut down, especially those relating to politics and

religion i.e., Radio Free Asia, Voice of America, sites related to Taiwanese politics,

Falun Gong, the Dalai Lama and Tibet, democracy, etc. The government also claims a

heavy crackdown on criminal activity and pornography.

Therefore, it is no wonder that a common misconception of the GFW is that the

central government in Beijing monitors and censors all information. In reality, the Great

Firewall works on several levels, including local (domain companies, Internet cafes) and

personal (self-censorship).

In China, all Internet and mobile companies, both domestic and foreign, are held

responsible for what their users do, from the content they post to what they search for

online. The companies are even held legally responsible for what users discuss through

online chat and messaging. This is known as intermediary liability, and in this way,

censorship is outsourced and delegated to the private sector. Patrons of Internet cafes are

supposed to register with their real names and proper identification cards, to track user

activity. Companies are responsible for removing anything deemed offensive, from

pornography to defamation of public officials and calls for political reform. If these

companies do not comply with Chinese regulation and find or remove offensive

material, they risk heavy fines and even being completely shut down. Therefore, much

censorship is performed through the employees of the companies rather than Internet

police (MacKinnon 2010b). In fact, annual Internet Self-Discipline Awards are given

to those companies who practice effective private sector censorship, and they are


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complimented as being patriotic for developing a harmonious and healthy

Internet(MacKinnon 2010a).

Another method of information control is accomplished through the process of

licensing journalists by the General Administration of Press and Publication:

We can say metaphorically that four documents are used to control media in

mainland China. The first is the birth certificate, or chushengzheng, which

means that the state controls which publications can and cannot be issued withpublishing licenses. The second is the press card, orjizhezheng, which determines

who does and who does not have the credentials to practice journalism. Next

comes the certificate of appointment, or weirenzhuang, which controls

appointments of top officials inside media outfits. Finally, there is the deathcertificate, or siwangzheng, meaning that the CCP can choose at any time to shut

down or otherwise discipline media that do not fall in line. (Gang &Bandurski2010)

Content restrictions are constantly updated and revised as well. Reporters Without

Borders released a 17-page report in 2008 on Internet censorship in China with the help

of one Chinese Internet technician, who collected dozens of messages sent to him and

other Internet operators. They give insight on these workings of the central government:

19 May 2006, 16:00From: Fan Tao, deputy director of the Beijing Internet Information Administrative

Bureau

The website Qianlong has already posted a news report about a change in the

increase in Beijing taxi fares (http://beijing.qianlong.com/3825/2006/05/19/134

@3182655.htm). All sites are asked to put it in their news section, but not in a

prominent position, to not put it on their front page, and to stop comments on thesubject.

17 June 2006, 18:35From: Chen Hua, deputy director of the Beijing Internet Information

Administrative Bureau

Dear colleagues, the Internet has of late been full of articles and messages about

the death of a Shenzhen engineer, HuXinyu, as a result of overwork. All sites

must stop posting articles on this subject, those that have already been postedabout it must be removed from the site and, finally, forums and blogs must

withdraw all articles and messages about this case.


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In another example, immediately before the annual session of the National Peoples

Congress and Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference in March 2010, the

Propaganda Department and Bureau of Internet Affairs sent a memo to top editors

detailing internal guidelines for coverage of these two sessions, including: Do not report

on news of people from all walks of life demanding that officials make financial

disclosures, No negative news allowed on the front pages of newspapers or the

headline news sections of Web sites, Do not report on the hunger strike by Ai Weiwei

and other artists, and Do not report on the news of the Inner Mongolian female

prosecutor who drove a luxury vehicle and who was reinstated after resigning.

Obviously these internal guidelines can range from general instructions to very specific

ones, and memos like these are typically sent out weekly (NYT 2010).

Furthermore, much self-censorship stems from the fact that Chinese citizens are

often punished for public dissent, and therefore they refrain from speaking out publicly

against the government. Newspaper editors who dare speak out, voice their opinions, or

defy censorship guidelines face job termination and retribution. Speaking and writing

critically of the government is known as state subversion and is a crime punishable by up

to 15 years in jail and/or re-education labor camps (Camphausen 2009). Chinese

citizens are also used as watchdogs against each other, and hotlines and monetary

rewards have been established to report pornography and other offensive material.

Of course, such an all-encompassing method of government censorship also

requires the implementation of technological restrictions. In China, the Internet has built-

in choke points, which are made up of a small number of fiber optic cables and cause

temporary disruptions in the flow of information. These choke points are what allow the


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government to physically monitor everything entering and leaving the country. There are

only three of them: the ones in Beijing in the north and Shanghai on the coast both come

in from Japan, while Guangzhous in the south comes from Hong Kong. To give a sense

of their importance, when a seabed earthquake near Taiwan disrupted some major cables

in 2006, it took months for transmission speeds into China to return to what they have

been prior to the quake (Fallows 2008).

Also installed in these cables are tappers or network sniffers, whose purpose

is to mirror and copy every packet of information passing in or out. In fiber optic cables,

data travels as pulses of light, and these mirrors copy reflections of these packets into a

separate set of Golden Shield computers. Therefore, when someone sends information

into or out of China, while it is trying to reach its destination, China is also receiving a

copy and checking if it should be let through or stopped1(Fallows 2008).

In addition to these technological obstacles, the Great Firewall also functions

using methods of filtering, redirection, and connection resetting. In a 2008 report for The

Atlantic, James Fallows explains the four methods of web blocks. The bluntest is the

Domain Name System, or DNS, block. Normally, when a user enters a web address, the

DNS looks up that websites Internet Protocol (IP) address, which indicates where the

site can be found. In this case, the DNS is like a telephone switchboard operator, and the

IP address is the specific phone number you wish to reach. When instructed to block, the

DNS either returns a false IP address or no IP address, and the user cannot reach the

desired site.

1 Interestingly, the original mirrors were designed and sold to the Chinese by theAmerican technology firm Cisco (Fallows 2008).


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If the DNS returns the correct IP address, the computer sends a signal to request

to connect to the site. During this time, Golden Shield computers have also received a

copy of the request, and check it against a list of forbidden IP addresses. If the requested

site is on that list, the Chinese server interrupts with a reset command to both

computers, somewhat equivalent to forcing two phones to hang up on each other. The

user then usually sees a blank webpage stating, The connection has been reset or Site

not found.

The third block is through filtering Uniform Resource Locator, or URL,

keywords. Put simply, the URL is any websites address for example,

www.google.com. Though a sites IP address may not be on a blacklist, if the URL

contains sensitive keywords, like Falun Gong or Tibet for example, it will not be reached.

In this case, the request to connect to the server is not reset, but it gets looped into a series

of delayed commands that will never complete. Fallows compares this as the

programming equivalent of keeping someone busy by writing Turn over on both sides

of a blank paper. The list of blocked keywords is constantly updated, including words in

both English and Chinese and up-to-date with the latest censor-worthy news (again, an

example being when Urumqi became unsearchable following the Xinjiang riots). In

some circumstances, a URL might coincidentally have a blocked keyword within it

(maybe say, the name of a town or dissident) and while the website itself is innocent, it

will still be unreachable within the Firewall.

Finally, there is the most intensive part of the Great Firewall: page-by-page

scanning to determine the acceptability of all content of a website. When you reach a site,

again the information gets sent both to you and the surveillance servers, thanks to the


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mirrors. The GFW scans each bit of content, and if it finds something that falls under the

list of blacklisted terms, it breaks both the connection and the ability to download

anything further from that site. Furthermore, the user is put under a temporary blackout to

that site, so that if the user tries to reach it again, they are put on a two-minute time-out

the first time, five minutes the second time, followed by even 30-minute or hour-long

blackouts to that site. So a site like the New York Times might be reachable on most

days, but if they suddenly report on Tibet or Xinjiang, access to their site becomes

restricted, and should you try to reach their webpage, your computer becomes unable to

reach any article on the Times site and your IP address is flagged for attempting to reach

bad information. If someone attempts too hard or too often to reach offensive sites, if

may attract the attention of authorities. This form of filtering is considered more refined,

as it does not require blocking whole IP addresses. It can also be used in reverse; as

someone from outside China tries to find sensitive information located within the

country, the GFW servers can monitor the search terms and censor the results that go out.

Fallows writes that Chinas Great Firewall is crude, slapdash, and surprisingly

easy to breach. Yet it is still effective because of its unpredictability and the uncertainty

it causes. Keyword lists are constantly being revised, so the public is never sure what is

safe and what is not. And because the connection is always simply reset, with no

explanation, users are constantly left wondering if the problem is with the Firewall, their

Internet provider, or is maybe just a simple glitch in their own computer.

As complicated as the Great Firewall seems to be, it is surprisingly easy to breach.

Technologically speaking, getting around the firewall is as simple as finding a proxy

server or a VPN. A proxy is a computer that sends your request for a site for you,


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therefore disguising the location of the request. While you may be sitting in China, your

request appears to be coming from a computer in, say, Canada, and therefore nothing is

blocked and you get what you asked for. One downside is that not all site functions may

get through the proxy. For instance, while using Facebook through a proxy in China,

sometimes uploading functions on your end are useless and you become like a ghost on

the site, only able to observe what other people have written and posted and not comment

or write back. Another downside is that this process creates some lag time; however,

since most proxies are free to use, receiving unfiltered information is usually worth the

wait.

Another technological workaround is known as a Virtual Private Network, or

VPN. VPNs are like your own private, encrypted channels on the Internet. So instead of

just passing your request to the hypothetical computer in Canada, the VPN connects your

computer to an actual Canadian server. Therefore, all your work online is done through

that server, and the GFW cannot monitor you because all of your online activity is

encrypted. While, according to Fallows, all foreign businesses in China use VPNs, they

are also available to individuals, usually at around 60 to 100 USD per year. Though

VPNs are faster and easier to use, the obvious deterrent to many is the cost. 60 to 100

USD may be considered slightly expensive for Americans, but for the average Chinese

worker, that cost is near astronomical especially just to access information that could

possibly get them into trouble.

So if the Chinese government is aware of these two workarounds, why arent they

doing the obvious thing and simply blocking proxy sites and VPN providers, or at least

attempting to read encrypted material? After all, filtering allows them, as an authority, to


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censor content it does not have authority over. Fallows explains a large reason: China

cannot afford to do either, as every bank, every foreign manufacturing company, every

retailer, every software vendor needs VPNs to exist. (As proxies are a milder form of

VPNs, the same problem exists with shutting them down.) For most companies, it is

unrealistic to try to conduct business and send transactions and commercial information

through the slow and unsecure servers of the Chinese Internet. Therefore, to keep

companies and businesses in China, the government must allow for exceptions to its rule,

even though it possibly allows ordinary citizens to also use the same loopholes for their

own purposes. The second reason why the Chinese government allows these methods is

because their main purpose in censorship is not to block all information. The government

is cognizant of the fact that if someone really wants information on sensitive topics, they

will find it. What they are attempting through censorship is to make the search for

information such an annoying process that people just wont bother. As Fallows points

out, Most Chinese peopleare interested mainly in their own country. All around them

is more information about China and things Chinese than they could possibly take in.

When this much is available inside the Great Firewall, why go to the expense and bother,

or incur the possible risk, of trying to look outside? Basically, the Chinese governments

method of censorship partly relies on apathy amongst its citizens.

Beyond these technological circumventions, Chinese citizens have developed

their own methods of reacting to censorship and bypassing the GFW. Though the

government heavily controls mainstream media, thanks to the Internet, Chinese netizens

have found an increasing number of outlets to vent their frustrations, from net forums to


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blogs to Internet memes.2

A site about something innocent, like pet animals, might

actually be a front for hosting discussions of political issues. Blocked sites are often

referred to as being harmonized, in reference to constant calls from the government for

a harmonious society. The Chinese bypass censorship in their writing by using code

names or homophones in reference to ideas, people, or places. They also rely on tools like

Twitter, Google Buzz, and blog feeds to pass on information as quickly and as often as

possible before an original post is shut down. While the Chinese government censors

attempt to work quickly to shut down sites that are deemed inappropriate, new users are

quick to sprout in a sort of domino effect. When these get too out of hand; oftentimes

bloggers will report that they have been invited to have tea with the police; this is a

code for a meeting with the police where they are basically told to stand down. Ironically,

Twitter is being used to bring attention to and complain about the very authorities who

block it, as Chinese bloggers use Twitter to inform fellow Chinese exactly when they are

invited for tea. (Anna 2010). Despite the authorities attempts to stifle voices, however,

as one blogger retaliates, We cannot see what we want to and we cannot speak as we

like. But if ten people speak and they are censored, five of them will keep talking. And

China is a huge country. There will be new people who want to speak (Branigan 2010).

However, not all complaints on the Internet are censored. Officials also use the

web to track public mood and opinion, and there have been a few instances of the

government intervening in certain situations due to public outcry on the web. An example

of this would be the July 2009 case of Deng Yujiao, a waitress who killed a local official

2 The Chinese language lends itself easily to homophonic puns. In early 2008, a video

went viral featuring innocent llamas and children singing about the grass mud horse,

which is a homophone for profanities referring to ones mother. Censors are sometimesreferred to as river crabs, a homophone for the characters for harmony.


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after he attempted to sexually assault her. After Deng gained strong support online, the

local government promised a fair hearing and she was released without punishment under

the reason of mental imbalance (BBC 2009). Her lawyer described the case as a victory

for public opinion. While slow progress, it shows hope that access to more information

will make officials more accountable as people become less afraid to challenge them

(Branigan 2010).

Since the rise of Twitter, however, netizens have found yet another way to scale

the Firewall beyond the admittedly shaky system of code words and homophones. In

Twitter, the Chinese have found a method of transferring information to the outside in a

manner that, as Twitter is not under control of the Chinese government and does not

censor users, is stable, reliable and unsilenceable.

Furthermore, Twitter is advantageous to the Chinese simply because of its

character allowance. While in English, 140 characters usually forms 2-3 sentences, in

Chinese, where one or two characters can mean an entire word or phrase, a tweet of 140

characters becomes a short story (Crampton 2010). In one example, Crampton (2010)

found that a tweet of 114 Chinese characters translates into 430 characters in English

over three times the length of a normal tweet. Thanks to this linguistic difference, Twitter

becomes an actual mini-blog for the Chinese.

However, the usefulness of Twitter really stemsfrom its ability to bypass the

Great Firewall. The Chinese government only restricts access to Twitters main site by

blocking its IP address. Yet there are multiple ways to tweet in China, besides using

proxies. These technological bypasses come in the form of Twitters open application

programming interface, or API. The API allows users to send and receive tweets through


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sites and programs other than www.twitter.com, which is blocked. This means that it is

possible for anyone to access Twitter without ever having to go to the main website. Best

of all, most of these applications are free. There are websites like Hahlo.com, which

basically functions like Twitter but through a different URL. Other popular Twitter

clients are desktop applications, which are downloaded to ones computer and only use

an Internet connection to access tweets, no web browser required. Another application is

actually incorporated into a Gmail browser, so blocking that program would require

blocking access on a whole to Gmail, which in the grand scheme of net neutrality, is

more detrimental to its citizens than helpful to the government. As of 2009, usage of the

API was already more than 20 times that of the actual Twitter site (Lennon 2009).

In order to completely restrict tweeting, the government would have to chase

down each and every one of these clients that facilitate access to Twitter and block each

one of them, whether through IP blocks or any of the methods mentioned previously.

Even then, Twitter applications will continue being built, so attempting to control all

access to Twitter is a never-ending effort. It would be like attempting to capture all the

cockroaches in your house, but you will never get them all as they keep reproducing. This

does not mean that the government isnt still trying. Since blocking Twitter, authorities

have also blocked bit.ly, a popular URL shortening service that makes it easier to share

long web links, which was also Twitters default URL shortener since May 2009. Of

course, this fact was soon tweeted through the China circles and those aware immediately

began to use other URL shorteners instead (there are hundreds) so those in China could

still have access to the information behind shortened links.

The Chinese government is justified in viewing Twitter as a threat. As of the latest


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Edelman White Paper from December 2009, in China there are at least 338 million

Internet users, 181 million bloggers and 155 million people using mobile devices for web

use (Hoy, VanderMolen, &Schokora 2009). Furthermore, 84.3% of Chinese Internet

users believe thatthe web is the most important source of information.A January 2010

poll orchestrated by the top 14 Chinese tech bloggers saw 121,446 voters declare Twitter

as the most recognized international service in China in 2009, followed by YouTube

and Gmail (Lu 2010). Twitter and YouTube actually took over 38% of the votes, despite

both sites being blocked in China, indicating their continuing relevance and presence

despite the governments attempts to shut them out.

Furthermore, a recent February 2010 survey from the Chinese tech blog Kenengba

highlighted some interesting statistics to provide a profile of who exactly tweets in China.

Of one thousand surveyed Chinese Twitter users, the survey found that 70% were

between the ages of 21 and 29. This is an impressionable age group; a study by

Kaid&Postelnicu (2007) found that amongst (American) undergraduates, most believed

the source of a political message online, regardless the source. They were equally likely

to form or change their political attitudes based on the information provided to them,

without questioning who wrote or published it. If this holds true for Chinese youth, then

they are just as easily impressionable by tweets as they are by blogs and government

mouthpieces.

Other results of the same Kenengba study found87% of respondents were male, and

the majority of them have at least a bachelors degree. The top two sectors represented

were students and I.T. professionals, and over half come from the coastal cities, which

are economically more well off. Finally, their top three reasons for tweeting were To


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know the truth and open the horizon, To record and share my life, and To get

information and show my concern about democracy. Other reasons included:

8. No censor here and we can preserve the primary mode of communication

here.12. I can say what I want here without considering whether I should say this or

how I should say this. Whether or not I would violate any law. This is the taste offreedom that I enjoy.

13. In an army school where ideological control is very strict, Twitter allows me

to keep my independent citizen conscious. (Lam 2010a)

Finally, in a follow up April 2010 survey by Kenengba, a survey of 5300 social media

users from Twitter and three other Chinese microblogging services found interesting

statistics on how the Chinese are jumping the Firewall. 85% of the users used some sort

of circumvention tool, including various proxies and VPNs. However, 88% claim to pay

less than 10 RMB (1.46 USD) on these tools, while 10% spend 10-50 RMB (up to 7.32

USD). This is incredibly important as it shows that the Chinese are beginning to no

longer rely on expensive VPN services to gain access to these microblogging services,

including Twitter, and therefore more and more people can join in the social media

phenomenon. Two-thirds of the users said they cross the wall every day, 8% crossed

every other day, and 17% said they crossed 1-3 times a week. 52% had less than three

years of experience in getting around the Firewall, yet 85% said they have taught their

friends how to use circumvention tools as well. This bodes poorly for the government

authorities, as in indicates that many Chinese citizens are not only learning how to bypass

the wall, but passing the information to their friends as well. As for reasons why they

jump the wall, 80% claim to want access to basic Internet services like Google; 75%

desire access to social media websites like Twitter, and 72% want access to foreign

media.Again, important because it indicates more Chinese are developing the desire to


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learn about the outside world through foreign media. Finally, what are the most recent

attitudes towards the Great Firewall amongst Chinese netizens?Kenengba found that 38%

of surveyed users believe that the GFW should be removed and around 50% suggest a

more transparent and clearer regulation on Internet censorship (Lam 2010b). This last

statement is telling because it shows slow but positive progress; while the Chinese may

be hesitant to lose all censorship from Big Brother, they at least recognize the need for

more transparency and Internet freedom.

Twitter itself has also recognized that its role has evolved to more than just

sharing simple status updates. In late July 2009, the site changed its trademark tagline

from the question What are you doing? to Share and discover whats happening right

now, anywhere in the world. Some Chinese have taken as an encouraging sign of

Twitters possibilities, as share and discover invites more movement of information

(Damon 2010). Chinese activist Ai Weiwei has declared Twitter as the peoples tool, the

tool of the ordinary people, people who have no other resources (Ventura 2010). In a

recent meeting with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Ai told him, The Chinese people

think you are some kind of god. You created a possibility for people in this very dark

room to see a ray of lightto freely give their opinion. Though current registration on

Twitter is in English, were Dorsey to create a Chinese language interface, as the company

is currently considering, Ai told him he would become one of the most important heroes

in Chinese political development (Ventura 2010). Founder Evan Williams has also

acknowledged that Twitter is blocked in China and commented, The most productive

way to fight is not by trying to engage Chinawhose [governments] very being is


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against what we are about. I am hopeful there are technological ways around these

barriers (Gapper 2010).

Twitter and Politics

The usefulness of Twitter in China was first established in May 2008, when an

earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter Scale hit Sichuan Province, in central China.

Those in the area with Twitter immediately tweeted their statuses, which alerted other

bloggers to the situation, which soon caught the attention of news agencies worldwide.

China immediately allowed outside aid organizations to come in to the area and provide

disaster relief; a stark contrast to their actions in the wake of the 1976 Tangshan

earthquake, wherein they effectively closed themselves off and refused any help. Though

it is difficult to establish Twitter as the cause for these actions (especially as the Beijing

Olympics were only three months away), Twitters role in Sichuan could be seen as the

first real proof of its usefulness. It redefined breaking news as updates were coming out

seconds after they occurred, or even while they were happening, and it produced a then-

uncommon first-hand account of the incident through tweets, photos, and videos. No

longer were Internet users just reading or hearing about a story, distant from its reality,

but they could feel what it was like to actually be in the midst of such a disaster and find

it easier to empathize with those affected.

Twitters unexpected turn towards politics is not restricted to China. The

microblogging service has also been cited in stirring or aiding political riots in other

countries across various continents, most notably in the protests of the Moldovan

elections in April 2009 and the violent protests after the Iranian elections in June 2009.

While lengthy papers could be (and have been) written about those Twitter


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Revolutions, this paper will focus solely on the use and impact of Twitter during the

Xinjiang riots of July 2009.

To fully understand the riots, first one must understand some background about

Xinjiang and its people. A province in northwestern China, bordered by Mongolia and

several Central Asian states, Xinjiang, which in Mandarin Chinese means new frontier,

is not just a convenient cushion between China and Central Asia. The region is rich in

resources, contributing to 40% of Chinas coal reserves, more than 20% of its natural gas,

as well as oil reserves and gold, salt, and mineral deposits. The Chinese have been eager

to share this wealth: while in 1947 there were only 220,000 Han Chinese to three million

Uighurs in Xinjiang, by 2007 the population had swelled to 8.2 million Han to 9.6 million

Uighurs (Teague 2009).

Xinjiangs inhabitants are mostly Uighur (pronounced wee-ger), an ethnic

minority that practices Islam and speaks its own language, which is linguistically Turkic

and written in Arabic script. While the majority of Chinese are ethnically Han and

therefore have similar features, Uighurs appear more Central Asian; they may have

darker or lighter skin, and blond hair and blue eyes are not uncommon. Relations between

the Uighurs and Han Chinese have long been tense. The Uighurs have twice tried to

break away from the mainland: in 1933 the Uighurs briefly declared independence as the

Republic of East Turkestan; their second attempt in 1944 lasted five years, until the

Chinese Communist Party took power in Beijing. Because of the differences in

appearance, language, religion, and as a result of stereotyping, Han Chinese look down

upon the Uighurs with racist attitudes. They believe the Uighurs to be thieves and drug

dealers, often primitive, poor, and violent. The Uighurs are often mistreated in China,


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from discriminatory employment practices to unequal education and family planning

policies. The Uighurs in turn resent the Chinese for their minority status and treatment

(Kaltman 2007), both in Xinjiang and all over China, as well as the influx of Han into

their territory, many of whom are trying to make their fortune out in the West while

disregarding the Uighurs.

Not surprisingly, this tension has led to violent outbursts over the years between

the two groups. It occurred yet again in late June 2009. A factory worker in Shaoguan,

located in Guangdong province in southern China, claimed that six Uighur men had raped

two women. Allegations of robbery and rape by Uighurs had been running high recently

in the area (Christmas3 2009), so while the accusation may have been false, it nonetheless

led to a violent brawl in the factory that lasted several hours, and ended in two Han

workers beating two Uighur coworkers to death. This sparked thousands of Uighurs,

2,000 miles away in the Xinjiang capitol of Urumqi, to take to the streets in protest of the

treatment of the Uighur workers. While it is unclear exactly what happened, the

protestors soon turned into a mob, with both Han and Uighurs attacking each other with

crude weapons like meat cleavers, clubs, and rusty swords (Teague 2009). The initial riot

began on July 5and lasted late into the night, but disturbances and scuffles continued over

the next few days, especially as the Han lashed back at the Uyghur, and police and

military were soon called in to the area.

Shortly after the riots broke out in Xinjiang, somewhere between 4 and 8 AM on

July 6, Internet in the entire region was cut off (J. Summers, personal communication,

April 18, 2010).Twitter became inaccessible, but it was not the only one; two Chinese

3 Name changed by request


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microblogging sites that were similar to Twitter were blocked as well. Chinese search

engines would not search for the terms Urumqi, Xinjiang, or Uighur, and official

government statements laid blame for the riots solely on the Uighurs. This

communications outage was not unexpected from the Chinese government, as they were

trying to prevent photos and videos from being uploaded, which could cause further

disruption and rioting. YouTube had been blocked since March 2009, and Twitter had

been blocked just the month before this incident, in the days leading up to the 20 th

anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4th. However, even though the

Internet block in Xinjiang came into effect much swifter than previous incidents,

correspondents and Chinese in the area were already tweeting in real-time; giving first-

hand accounts of what they saw and experienced as unrest continued to spread through

the city. As descriptive tweets and links to photographs were circulated through the

Internet and blogosphere, the Chinese government could not deny nor suppress the riot

and instead opened the area to foreign journalists. This move was a welcome surprise

move in contrast with the governments previous press containment policies, like that of

Tibet, where the entire area was sealed off to any foreigners.

An American journalist in China, Adam Minter,wrote that from a media

standpoint, the Urumqi riots signaled a shift in how sensitive events in China were

allowed to be covered. Unlike the March 2008 riots in Tibet, authorities quickly decided

to allow foreign and domestic media to cover the situation. Group reporting trips were

organized, and even allowed into the riot zones (Minter 2009b). Minter also posted an

email that was sent to some registered foreign correspondents in China, offering tour

services into Xinjiang:


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Dear Journalists,

There was a terrorist attack happened in the capitol city Urumqi of Xinjiang

Uygher Autonomous Region in Northwest China on July 5th, 2009, leaving 156

people dead, 1080 others injured and more than 200 vehicles broken. According

to the facts that Chinese government has found, the terrorist attack was organized

and prepared. This incident attracted more attention of the foreign and domesticmedia. Up to now, more than 60 overseas media have sent journalists to Urumqi,

capital of Chinas Northwest Xingjiang Region, after a riot broke out in the cityon July 5th.

We disclosed information shortly after the incident. We welcome domestic andoverseas journalists to come and see what happened, HouHanmin, deputy head

of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Xinjiang

Regional Committee, said Tuesday. Please feel free to contact us if you wish to goto Xinjiang for covering this incident. We will provide you efficient and

convenient interview service assistance in accordance with Chinese policy.

While the email still has hints of government control (the accusation of terrorism, for

example), its openness gives some indication of how the CPCs policies towards media

coverage are progressing, especially in comparison to the lockdown of Tibet following its

riots in 2008, and considering the CPCs general penchant for covering up sensitive and

possibly embarrassing issues.

The results of this openness were beneficial to many, from the journalists to the

public, but an unexpected outcome also came from the victim reports. While the

government was placing blame on the Uighurs and the Uighurs were blaming the Han,

images, videos, and reports coming from the region were showing the truth: hospitals

were full of both Uighurs and Han. Perhaps because of its association of the troubles in

Tibet, the Western world was quick to jump to the aid of the Uighurs and blame the Han,

but the Uighurs were also at fault for the violence. Due to the various medias allowed

into Xinjiang, proper information was reported and the world could see that it wasnt just

the Uighurs suffering in Xinjiang; people regardless of ethnicity, religion, age, gender

they were all suffering.


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Methodology

To effectively measure that Twitter has a strong influence in China is a difficult

task, especially in a setting as vast and wide as the world wide web. However, I

attempted to find answers with the various resources available. Using tweets from the

period of the Xinjiang riots from July 6th to July 11th, 2009, I sought to prove that

Twitter is indeed a threat to a Great Firewall due to both the great volume of tweets

dispersed, and the content contained within.

Although the riots began on July 5th, I chose to use tweets beginning on July 6th

because that is when information really began pouring through, on both the web and on

Twitter. (It is difficult to report on something as it is happening when you have no idea

where it will lead or when it will end; by the end of July 5th, news started to spread of the

riots that had occurred.) As the riots continued over the next few days, much more

information began coming in. Therefore, my data begins on the morning after, on July 6.

They end on July 11 because by then, the majority of the rioting had subsided.

Challenges arose immediately in deciding which tweets to use. There are

thousands of tweeters in China, putting out thousands of tweets, how does one decide

which ones are of value? Ultimately, it came down to those users who had stood out most

in my mind from the Xinjiang riots: @malcolmmoore and @melissakchan. Both were

Twitter users who were giving first-hand accounts, and both happened to be journalists:

Malcolm Moore is the Shanghai correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, who channeled

his colleague Peter Foster in Xinjiang; Melissa Chan is an English correspondent in

China for Al Jazeera who was also on the scene. Moore also frequently retweeted news

and blogs about Urumqi from both Twitter and the web. From most accounts of fellow


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China tweeters, it appeared as though these two were the most frequently retweeted, and

the top go-to sources for tweets during this time period.

It was not enough just to use these two sources, so I added two more journalists

on the scene, based on the recommendations of respected Shanghai-based journalist

Adam Minter: @austinramzy, Austin Ramzy ofTIME, and @ChinaSports, a contributor

at China Sports Review, who was tweeting mainly photos from the scene (Minter 2009a).

Finally, as I scrolled through every single one of Moores tweets from early July, I took

note of which China hands were frequently mentioned, and took their tweets as well:

@davesgonechina, a journalist who had spent time in and was familiar with Xinjiang;

@farwestchina, who lives in Xinjiang is one of the top-recognized bloggers on the

region, and @yrefrank, a user for whom there is little biography but wrote well in English

and often posted links to photos, videos, and other outside sources.

Obviously a major flaw to be recognized here is that I pulled only English tweets.

However, I chose to exclude Chinese tweets for a couple reasons. One is that including

them would have required the assistance of a translator, which was not easily accessible.

Another is that including Chinese tweets would have expanded the data pool to one that

was much larger, and therefore the process of drawing data would have taken much,

much longer to complete. But finally, Chinese tweets can be quite opinionated and

emotional, especially in as heated a situation as ethnic riots. I made the decision to focus

on as even-handed, propaganda-free tweeting as possible, which mainly came from

Western journalists and respected bloggers.

Of course there were also the tweets that never came to fruition. There were many

Westerners and journalists in Xinjiang, many of whom did not tweet, either due to lack of


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Internet, lack of a Twitter account, or perhaps simply choosing not to tweet for their own

safety, or to focus on reporting for their magazines and newspapers instead. There were

also the Internet blocks put into place nearly immediately after the riots, so obtaining any

information out of Xinjiang in general was difficult. I recognize this fact to acknowledge

the data I have comes from sources who are more Internet savvy.

At the end of this long process of collecting data, I had a total of 251 tweets. I do

not deny that self-selection of these tweets is very subjective; however I believe the

tweets I gathered fairly represented the information coming through Twitter during the

time period of July 6-11th, 2009. If one were to read through these tweets in a timeline,

they would have a sense of what it was like to be in China on those days, sitting on

Twitter through a proxy or VPN, watching the events unfold and waiting for the new

information that was constantly coming in.

Using two coders, a classmate and myself, these 251 tweets were coded in nine

categories: Tweet number, date, author, number of words, method of tweeting, if the

tweet included a hyperlink, if the tweet was a retweet, if the tweet included photo and/or

video, and content.

For the tweet number, each tweet was assigned a number 1-251, to easily identify

the tweet. For the date, July 6th was labeled as 1, July 7th as 2, and so on. The

authors were assigned numbers from 1 to 7 in alphabetical order, and each tweet was

counted for the length of its words. For method, there were three main Twitter clients and

one other category; each was numbered from 1-4, with the other category labeled

number 1. For the hyperlink, retweet, and photo/video category questions, a simple 0


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meant no and a 1 meant yes to the question (so a 1 under the hyperlink column meant

that Yes, it did include a hyperlink within the tweet).

These first eight categories were easy to identify, as they were unchangeable facts

of the tweet - the author or date is clearly not up for debate. When recording the number

of words in a tweet, Chinese characters were excluded and hyperlinks did not contribute

towards the word count. However, both hashtags (a word with the # symbol, used to tag

or label tweets) and the retweet abbreviation (RT) were counted. The real challenge

came in the category of content, which is qualitative data and highly subjective. Most

tweets were narrative, painting a portrait first-hand of the riots. It was difficult to code

because many of the tweets in the data were multi-faceted and could have been placed in

several categories, instead of fitting neatly into just one. Ultimately, there were 13

categories under Content, but it did require several re-codings to figure out exactly what

they should be. These categories were: Blame and Cause, Censorship, Foreign journalist

perspective, Foreign media, Government, Greater China/World, Life in Xinjiang,

Opinion/Commentary, Photo/Video, Rioting and Unrest, Security, Tolls, and

Violence/Victims.

The Blame and Cause category is for those tweets that noted any possible

causes for the riots or unrest in Urumqi. That did not necessarily imply that they were

accurate; only that they had a source of blame. Any tweet that indicated censorship, or

methods of getting around censorship, was fairly easy to identify and labeled as such.

Tweets labeled Foreign journalist perspective were not just narratives of on-the-site

reporting, but especially experiences and difficulties that would be specific to foreigners


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in the area. This was important to determine how people who were not Uighur or Han

were treated during this time, and also how they viewed the situation as outsiders.

Any tweets whose sole purpose was to link to a piece in foreign media, whether

an official report or an online update, was obviously labeled Foreign Media. All of

these tweets had hyperlinks included in the text. The category of Government was for

any tweet that mentioned actions taken by the government, both in Xinjiang and on a

larger scale in Beijing. Tweets that describe the reactions of people as news of the riots

spread, both in China and around the world, were given the label of Greater

China/World. The label Life in Xinjiang is for tweets that gave an impression of what

living in region was like during those turbulent days of early July. Any tweets that

included little to no fact but was more inclined toward noting opinions and commentary

was so marked under Opinion/Commentary.

While many tweets contained links to outside photos and videos, tweets whose

sole purpose was to link to photography or videos of the situation in Xinjiang were

categorized as Photo/Video. One of the largest categories, Rioting and Unrest,

consisted of descriptive narratives of what was occurring amongst restless and angry

citizens in Xinjiang. The label of Security kept track of what actions the local police

and military were taking to keep peace and order. Any tweet that reported or discussed

tolls, from the number killed to the number injured, was categorized as Tolls. These

numbers were often disputed, especially the official counts coming from the government.

Finally, the last category of Violence/Victims told of violent actions taking place in

Xinjiang, as well as describing the victims encountered and the injuries sustained.


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Results

After coding all the tweets into these thirteen categories, all data was uploaded into SPSS.

First I ran crosstabs on the coding to determine intercoder reliability, using Cohens

Kappa. The result was 81.9% agreement between the two codings.

Symmetric Measures

ValueAsymp. Std.

Errora Approx. Tb Approx. Sig.

Measure of

Agreement

Kappa .819 .026 40.549 .000

N of Valid Cases 251

a. Not assuming the null hypothesis.

b. Using the asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis.

Figure 1 - Frequency over Time

Then I ran descriptives to highlight freqencies in the data. This was simply to give

an idea of the amount of tweets that were collected, and their distribution over time. First,

I found that the most tweets (47%) were put out on Day 2, or July 7, 2009, followed by

20.7% the next day, July 8. This is consistent with the timeline of the riots; unrest and

scuffles continued into the days following the original riot, with both Han and Uighurs


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retaliating in anger, until the dust finally started to settle around July 9. Furthermore, the

sheer number of tweets is important, because while 251 may not seem like a large

number, it is only a representative sample of the thousands of tweets and retweets put out

in those days; which is thousands more pieces of information than the censorship

authorities would have allowed to slip to the outside world.

Figure 2 - Method of Tweet

When it came to the method, or which Twitter client was used, the most popular was

the web, followed by TweetDeck. However, this is slightly misleading, as there are many

Twitter clients whose tweets are labeled as sent via web but are actually sent using the

Twitter API. However, tweets coming from TweetDeck can only be coming from

TweetDeck, which is a downloadable client that operates from the desktop and not a web

interface. While the smallest percent is the other category at eight percent, those were all

web clients that managed to bypass the Great Firewall. As Chinese authorities crack down on

Other

TweetDeck

Twhirl

Web


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the major clients like TweetDeck (as of this writing TweetDeck is now also blocked), smaller

applications like those in the other category will be what keep Twitter afloat in China.

Figure 3 Frequency of Content

The chart above (Figure 3) represents the distribution of tweets according to

content. The top category was Rioting and Unrest (15.1%), followed by

Opinion/Commentary and Security (11.6%), then Foreign Journalist Perspective and

Violence/Victims (10.8%). These were the categories of tweets that were the most

descriptive and narrative of the situation in Xinjiang. The words contained in these tweets

told of violence, unrest, censorship, free-flow thought and commentary on the

government; all the subversive content that would normally be suppressed by

authorities as they tried to paint a picture of peace and harmony in Xinjiang. This would

be in line with the theory that one of four main reasons people participate in journalism is

to refer attention towards a specific activity, in this case the violent activities committed

by the rioters, to further influence government or authorities in general. This also serves


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an example of filter blogging, as tweeters were bringing to attention certain items and

choosing to ignore (or focus less on) others during this current event.

Figure 4 Content over Time

Next, the above bar chart (Figure 4) shows the progression of content over time of

the tweets. At its height, on Day 2, the most tweeted categories were similar to that of the

overall content: rioting, violence, foreign perspectives and security. As time went on,

reports of rioting and violence declined greatly and by the end, as military and police

came in and the journalists left, the only categories left were that of foreign journalists

perspective, links to foreign pieces in the media, and last toll reports. Categories like

descriptions of rioting and violence (especially against the Uighurs by the Han), foreign

perspectives, and opinions and commentary on China and government actions would


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most likely have been censored out of the public realm, had it not been for Twitters

ability to disseminate these tweets and comments beyond the GFW.

Figure 5 - Not Included vs Included

Nearly 15 percent of the data linked to media of some kind, and of course images

are just as, if not more, powerful than words. Inclusion of a link to a photo or video

contributes more information than what is said in just one tweet. This result was actually

less than expected, as many recall viewing tweeted images quite frequently during this

time period. This might attest to the power of images to linger in the mind; that more

were recalled than actually were presented. Images also help in forming an idea of the

situation at hand, and can be powerful propaganda tools depending on who is using them.

While these tweeted photos were mainly to spread awareness among the public, the

government could have easily utilized these images to promote an agenda against the

Uighurs, and indeed RebiyaKadeer, a prominent Uighur activist, attempted to use photos


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of an old riot and pass them off as current. (However, she was found out and of course,

news of her deception was spread across Twitter.)

Figure 6 - Photo/Video over Content

What were these photos portraying? The top three categories, besides the obvious

one of Photo/Video, were those describing violence, rioting, and security details. These

narratives are powerful enough on their own, but the addition of photos and videos make

them even more potent. Furthermore, they reinforce the theory of filter blogging,

microblogging for a purpose to push an agenda; and they support the idea Twitter is a

political tool in that the tweets from Xinjiang included a great deal of information that

would never pass the Chinese gatekeepers and be allowed to be seen by the general

public.


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Figure 7 - Not Included vs Included

When analyzing how many tweets had hyperlinks, it was found that nearly one

out of every three tweets linked to another source, whether it was a photograph or a video

or news report. These are important because while a tweet only allows 140 characters, the

addition of a hyperlink allows access to so much more information beyond the tweet.

This shows that while Twitter is an important tool, it is still limited in its capacity to share

information and therefore its users link to those mediums that can properly deliver

information, i.e. newspapers and websites. Twitter and microblogging in this way will

never be the end of journalism, but rather a complement to new journalism.


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Figure 8 - Hyperlinks over Content

When viewing what content had the most hyperlinks in the tweet, the few that

stood out were foreign media and photo/video, both of which were expected as including

hyperlinks were part of their coded description. The other category with a noticeable

number of hyperlinks was that of Violence/Victims, which was unexpected, as it was

mostly a category of short descriptions. However, that is a powerful tool because as

already mentioned, the addition of a hyperlink allows one to add more information to a

tweet beyond just a short 140-character blurb- especially when describing something as

raw and graphic as violence.The fact that the government has blocked the popular URL

shortenerbit.ly proves that hyperlinks are viewed as another damaging part of Twitter.

Furthermore, when it comes to these short blurbs, a simple tweet could be taken out of


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context, but a full article easily clears matters up. Again, this shows the collaborative

relationship between Twitter and journalism.

Figure 9- Most Retweeted

Most of the gathered tweets were original, and not retweets. This was done on

purpose so as to keep the author pool organized while still representing the importance of

retweets in the Twitter community. While most of the categories seem somewhat even,

the most commonly circulated tweets were the ones with photo and video of the scene in

Xinjiang.

However, retweets are incredibly important for another purpose: by representing

the distribution of tweets, they can estimate exactly how far the information spread. If

you were to take the retweets and identify their authors, you could see the demographics

of the people (for example, their location) who were receiving the information and

passing it along to theirfollowers. While gathering retweets of every single tweet would


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have been difficult and time-consuming, Malcolm Moore helped with establishing the

effect of the retweet. When asked about how often he was retweeted, he responded,I

wasn't tracking it really. At a guess, I would say each post would have been retweeted 20-

30 times (personal communication, March 23, 2010). Moore posted hundreds of tweets

over those days; in my study alone I used 109 of his tweets. If those tweets were

retweeted 20 to 30 times, even at a low estimate that means hundreds of people around

the world could have read and followed what was going on from Malcolm alone.

Discussion

Twitter has come a long way from its humble roots in California. It has been

established all over the world as a political tool, and as this case study has shown, in

China it has opened the door to greater openness and has proven to be a crack in the

central governments Great Firewall. However, before rejoicing that Twitter will lead to

the end of communism or the beginnings of democracy, there are several limitations with

both this study and this subject overall.

First of all, while all attempts have been made to be as thorough as possible in this

study, it is still very subjective. I chose which tweets to include, meaning I could have

missed over some tweets that would have changed the results of my data. Were this

experiment to be repeated again, future researchers would not have as difficult a time as

me, as Google has recently begun archiving every single tweet ever tweeted into

existence. At the time of this writing, their archive only goes so far as February 2010, but

they plan to archive all the way back until the very first tweet from March 2006 (Casey

2010). Furthermore, using this archive, Google allows users to search for a specific year,


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month, or day, right down to specific hours and minutes. This tool will be incredibly

useful for future research into the tweets of the Xinjiang riots, and for gathering tweets as

a historical record in general.

In addition, I only chose data from English tweeters. Besides the reasons already

given for this, there was also the fact that only journalists really had access to the Internet

at that time, so automatically my data would be a bit biased towards those groups special

enough to gain Internet access. Josh Summers (@farwestchina) had plenty of insight and

first hand knowledge he would have loved to pass on through Twitter, but Internet was

blocked in his region almost immediately. So there are definitely those tweets that never

came to fruition that are forever lost to time, which was the goal of the Chinese

governments Internet block in the first place.Also, far more Chinese users were using

Twitter clones and social networking sites like Fanfou.net or Sina.com.cn at the time. It is

possible that in these Chinese sites we would likely find more examples of citizen

journalism, as few of these users are professional journalists. Though posts there also ran

the likely riskof being censored and/or deleted by government authorities, there were still

just as many reports regarding Xinjiang, if not more, coming from those sites as Twitter. I

hypothesize that were they to be collected, one would see many more first-hand accounts

there, as well as more negative ones, like staunchly nationalistic tweets. Either way, these

Chinese language tweets would have been valuable to study.

Furthermore, of the tweets that were included, they were coded very subjectively

in the content category. Even after multiple codings, both my second coder and I were

often torn between which categories to place tweets. The fact is that the majority of these

tweets could have been placed in multiple categories; there were very few that belonged


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to one clear-cut description. While the intercoder reliability agreement was at 81.9%,

above the preferred standard of agreement of 80%, it is barely above that mark. Had more

coders been recruited, it is quite possible for that measurement to drop below 80%.

Changes in content categorization could lead to very minor changes in the resulting data,

but it is also possible that it could lead to significantly different results. If I were to redo

this study, I would also like to include categories on specific word content and hashtags,

as I would find it interesting to note what the most commonly tweeted words were, how

many times terms like Uighur, Han, Urumqi, etc. were used, and if there were any

unexpected outliers regarding exactly what people were tweeting.

Also, for Twitter to be truly successful, it has to disseminate information both

inside and outside of China. Yet it is incredibly tricky to measure impact. How do you

measure what people across different countries do or do not see? Some insight from this

can again be found from Malcolm Moore:

[I noticed] the number of my followers suddenly spiked -from around 300 or so

to over 2000 over the two days or so following the night of the riots. The vastmajority of the new followers were Chinese, or at least people writing in Chinese.

I would pinpoint those riots as being a moment when lots of Chinese suddenlysigned up to Twitter and started to use it as an information-sharing service. Before

that I guess Fanfou was the engine of choice, but the fact that a number of

reporters were using Twitter to spread news about XJ brought Chinese over to

Twitter in droves. (personal communication, March 23, 2010)

These statements posit that it was definitively because of the information being tweeted

that led the Chinese to sign up for Twitter, in search of news about the riots. If this is true,

this proves Twitter is being used for political purposes in China, in that the Chinese are

seeking out, and are actuallyfinding and able to accessinformation that is otherwise

normally restricted to them by the Chinese government.


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Finally, while this paper has deemed Twitter a growing and important part of

citizen journalism, five of the seven authors in the case study were, or had at one time

been, professional journalists. At the time of data collection I thought this to be a

positive, as journalists are deemed as reliable sources of information and therefore their

tweets would have merit important in a time where wild rumors were running rampant.

Also, I would point to Tremayne (2007), who writes that blogs provide something not

offered by mainstream news sites: they give the reader the sense that they are offering

unmediated raw information. Eyewitness bloggers, whether they are professionals or

not, provide not only the news, but also instantaneous commentary, and through reading

this live discourse, readers get a feel for what its like to be part of the event.

Furthermore, Rutigliano (2007) argues that new citizen journalism has not made

journalists obsolete, but instead has made them the new monitors of the system. They

manage the complex systems of the public and saves it from its worst natural instincts,

because a democratic public sphere is not necessarily an organized one. Indeed, though

Malcolm and the other journalists did seem to fall under the one-to-many pattern in their

tweeting, they also were part of a many-to-many pattern in that others were retweeting

their tweets an adding commentary that furthered discussion amongst all Twitter users.

Also, they did not fit into general journalistic norms in that there was no us-versus-them

dichotomy; they were communicating with other Twitter users like regular people, and

not acting like they were just the gatekeeper at the top of the communication chain of

command.

However, though at the time of their tweeting these journalists appeared to be

writing simply as observers, as ordinary citizens of the world, it is admittedly unknown


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how much of their journalistic training was put into and impacted their tweets. While this

is a flaw in the study, it does not disprove my thesis; recalling Moldova or Iran, it is still

possible for the ordinary people to use Twitter to disseminate information in the midst of

a large-scale riot. A strong suggestion to help combat this in the future would be to

include Chinese tweets, from actual citizens of the country. If the net of social media

were to be expanded, a further study could also include postings from Fanfou.net, a

Chinese Twitter-clone patronized by many more Chinese users.

Beyond this case study, limitations exist in those who do not believe Twitter

would or could ever be a legitimate political tool, and their reasons do have to be

recognized for their merit. One argument is that the Internet does not overthrow

governments; people do (Morozov 2010). In fact, Twitter could actually help the

oppressive governments instead of the citizens, as anything on the Internet (photos,

videos, tweets, essays, etc.) can be archived and later used against the people. After the

Iranian elections, authorities launched a website of photographs taken from the protests

and encouraged the public to identify the people within (Morozov 2010). In China, users

must be aware; the government is undoubtedly monitoring what passes through its

channels. As the information is laid out directly online, it might be a matter of time

before the government uses someones tweets against them for thoughtcrime, as proof of

simply thinking critically of and speaking out against the government.

Furthermore, a large problem also exists in awareness of censorship itself. A

significant number of Chinese either flat-out have no idea there is censorship, or they

know of it but take the attitude, "All that sensitive content and names never concerned

me. It was not part of my daily life (Moore 2010). Twitter is only as good as the people


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who use it, and if people do not see the need to bypass the wall, they might not sign up

for it at all, or may not use it often or meaningfully. In addition, Twitter is definitely a

niche product; its users are mostly educated, well-off students and techies, living in the

coastal cities (Lam 2010). The same problem that applies to any product in any country

applies here in China: Twitter will never reach 100% of the people. Furthermore, the

Chinese have no reason to crave Twitter. They have their own social media services, sites

like QQ and Kaixin001, with membership numbers that far surpass Twitters (MacManus

2010).Also, just as many Chinesechoose to use a Chinese search engine over Google, the

Chinese believe in supporting these companies over Western ones as a symbol of Chinese

nationalism.

To have a truly long-term effect on social and political reforms in China, Twitter

would have to become more widespread. Morozoy (2010) writes, Taking full advantage

of online organizing requires a well-disciplined movement with clearly defined goals,

hierarchies, and operational procedures (think of Barack Obama's presidential

campaign). The Chinese people are a long way from this. First, they must recognize that

they are even being censored. Censorship leads to social control and self-censorship. For

any real change in China, citizens must first lose their apathy and recognize the need and

have the desire for change; The people must care enough to object (Fallows 2008).

Despite all these limitations, there is still reason to believe that Twitter has power

as a political tool, as it promotes freedom of speech behind the Great Firewall. If one of

the four main reasons people participate in journalism is to refer attention towards a

specific activity, to influencing government or authorities, then based upon the ever-

growing number of Internet users in China, the combination of Twitter and China-based


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web citizens could prove to be a crack in the Chinese governments Great Firewall. As

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams recently said at the 2010 South by Southwest

Conference, "The Internet is a tidal wave that is going to be impossible for anyone to

keep out. In places like China it is hard to say how long those firewalls will be able to

hold up[the Internet] is about democratization of information that anybody can share

with the world. (AFP 2010)

Indeed, there is promise. Those outside of China help those behind the Firewall

by developing more safe and cheap VPNs, and Twitter applications using the API.

Twitters API is what to watch in the future, as it allows for the most growth and change.

If in 2009 the API usage was more than 20 times that of Twitters main site, imagine its

possibilities in 2010 and beyond. Allowing all these third parties to access Twitter means

soon there will be thousands of ways to access Twitter, through tools, clients, and add-

ons, all of which the government has to chase each of these down one by one in order to

block.And as Kenengbas April 2010 survey of Chinese users showed, there will be

scores of Chinese netizens ready to adopt these technologies to scale the Wall.

Twitter itself has already advanced and will continue to enable free speech in

China simply by existing. Famous Chinese activist and dissident Ai Weiwei (the artist

who helped design the O

tear down this firewall: twitter as a political tool in china

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