China protesters defy authorities with dating apps and Telegram
OPPONENTS of China’s anti-Covid measures are resorting to using blocked dating apps and social media platforms to evade censors and spread the word about their defiance and strategy.
In a high-tech game of cat and mouse with the police, China’s netizens are saving videos, images and accounts of protests against the country’s tough Covid-19 curbs on platforms abroad before censors can delete them.
Many people rely on virtual private network (VPN) software to get past China’s Great Firewall and on to encrypted messaging apps.
For three days from Friday (Nov 25), protesters gathered in several Chinese cities in a show of civil disobedience unprecedented since President Xi Jinping assumed power a decade ago.
Frustration with the Chinese government’s stringent zero-Covid policy had been building, but the spark for the wave of protests was a deadly apartment building fire in the western city of Urumqi.
Authorities denied accusations on social media that a lockdown had prevented people from escaping the blaze. However, that did not stop protests from taking place on Urumqi’s streets.
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Videos of the protests were posted on the Weibo and Douyin social media apps, and censors tried to scrub them from the platform quickly. But they were downloaded and reposted not only across Chinese social media but also to Twitter and Instagram, which are blocked in China.
Residents of other cities and students on campuses across China then organised their own gatherings, which they in turn filmed and posted online.
“People are watching and playing off each other,” said Kevin Slaten, head of research at China Dissent Monitor, a database run by US-based non-profit Freedom House.
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State media has not mentioned the protests and the government has said little.
When asked about the protests, the foreign ministry said that China is a country under the rule of law. While all the rights and freedoms of its citizens are protected, they must be exercised within the framework of the law.
A senior health official said public complaints about Covid controls stemmed from overzealous implementation and not from the measures themselves.
Cryptic coordinates
Protesters communicating via WeChat – the most popular but highly censored app in China – keep information to a bare minimum, based on online discussions seen by Reuters.
Locations of planned gatherings are given without an explanation, or conveyed with map coordinates, or by a faint map in the background of a post.
“It was in the morning of the 27th that I got this secret clue: 11.27, 9:30, Urumqi office,” said one person who took part in a Beijing protest. The protest was planned for that day and time outside the Urumqi municipal government office in the capital.
Tight-knit networks of friends also trade information, adopting a “decentralised” model that some people say was inspired by the 2019 protests in Hong Kong.
People have set up Telegram groups to share information for their cities, said social media users. One Beijing-based protester said that dating app messaging services are also being used, in hopes that they face less scrutiny.
A few hours before protesters gathered in cities like Shanghai and Chengdu, online flyers and pinned locations were widely shared on Telegram groups, Instagram and Twitter, said social media users.
People are also using these platforms to share tips on what to do if they get detained, such as how to wipe data off a phone.
Police have been checking phones for VPNs and the Telegram app, residents and social media users said. VPNs are illegal for most people in China.
Parody
One Twitter account with almost 700,000 followers called “Teacher Li is not your teacher” has gained attention for posting protest footage from all over China.
At one point on Sunday, the account said: “At present, there are over a dozen submissions every second.”
Internet users are also attempting to get around the censors with posts that parody patriotic content or ones that show a blank square. The latter references the blank sheet of paper that the Chinese have adopted as a symbol of protest.
One viral post on China’s all-in-one WeChat app, used by more than a billion people, repeated the word “good” line after line. It was apparently mocking the tendency of the authorities and state media to present everything in a positive light.
The post was widely shared before disappearing.
Some WeChat users have posted clips of leaders such as Mao Zedong and Xi voicing support for free speech or popular uprising. The speeches, made under different circumstances, now seem apt to opponents of the zero-Covid policy.
“Now the Chinese people have organised themselves and are not to be messed with,” Xi said in one clip that was widely reposted on Monday. It was from a 2020 speech commemorating the 70th anniversary of China’s entry into the Korean War.
“If you get on their wrong side, it won’t be easy to handle.” REUTERS
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