China Bans Twitter and Facebook

It’s a sad day when totalitarian countries like Nazi Germany and Now China, which uses there violent power to keep their people ignorant can still rule millions of people. First China ridiculed for slaying innocent defenseless Buddhist and killing people on the streets as the police and military personnel is the judge and jury for each case instantly leaving dead bodies on the street as a example. But now even in this day, China still has the power to block the entire country from free speech and significant parts of the rest of the world. This is the hopes that their Chinese people will not realize how wrong it is to kill innocent people and be ruled with violence. But nothing is worse then the countries that rely on China for services like us. The US is billions of dollars in debt and have contracts to use China for services to help work off our debt off. I’m ashamed to be on the same planet as the Chinese government and ashamed to be in the US  while our government turns a cheek to the tyrant’s that still rule China.

Today: The Chinese government attempted to disable Twitter across most of mainland China as ethnic violence erupted in Xinjiang province over the past few days, and now reports coming out of that country say Facebook has also been shut down. Even so, several photos have managed to leak out via Twitter in recent days, some quite gruesome, reminiscent of those used to galvanize support for opposition protesters in Iran recently.

At least 140 people have been killed and more than 800 injured as ethnic Uighurs in China’s westernmost province have clashed with state forces in recent days. The state cut mobile phone service and attempted to sever Internet access there, fearing protesters might use social networking tools to organize, much as protesters did in Iran after the recent disputed election there. The viral videotaped demise of Neda Soltan, a young woman shot by Iranian security forces while attending a protest rally in Tehran, shocked the Western world and became a symbol for the opposition’s cause. China wants no such symbol to emerge in the Uighur uprising.

China’s knee-jerk reaction to immediately sever mobile communications and Internet access at the first sign of unrest speaks to the threat, or at least perceived threat, that social media poses to authoritarian regimes. Political developments in Moldova and Iran have annointed Twitter and Facebook the social networks of choice for revolutionary political movements, allowing like-minded people to organize virtually before taking to the streets.

Can social networking ultimately open up the flow of free information to the point authoritarianism is unsustainable? Some have suggested it will, though Iran was eventually able to curb communication among protesters, and China has put the kibosh on social networking for the time being (though there are many ways for tech-savvy citizens to circumvent state controls). But clearly these regimes are feeling the heat from the likes of Twitter and Facebook. Whether social networks were helping rioters organize (and it’s unclear that they were), the fact the state cracked down on those sites so quickly is a testament to the power they wield and a sign the “Twitter Revolution” lives. To that, we say “vive la resistance.”