Internet has prove itself to be the most powerful tool when it comes to disseminating information. Bloggers in China got together and made the capture of a Communist Party Official possible. Li Xingong was the deputy director of the Yongcheng city in China. A man with great power in his hands confessed raping multiple underage girls during the police interrogation. However, his capture would not be possible without the help of Chinese bloggers.
Before his arrest, online activists has been calling the case to the public's attention. Sina Weibo, a popular Chinese blog service, has been a central area for the movement against Li Xingong's arrest. Bloggers are outraged by his actions and through blogging, Li Xingong's shameful actions were exposed. This kind of phenomenon was fairly new to the country since the flow of information is tightly controlled by the government.
The number of blog users have increased exponentially in China. This creates a perfect platform for online activists to voice their opinions and expose corruptions in China. They have been quite successful in spreading and gathering news. With the increase of internet and blog users, Chinese politicians start to fear they will lose control of the flow of information.
In class, we discussed about the different ways that blogging has come into play in our society now. However, as this news points out, blogging has created this completely different meaning for the citizens in China. It is interesting to see the power of Internet and how easily one can start a movement just by typing a few words online. As we post our weekly blog, we should think about how lucky we are to have this kind of privilege to post whatever we want on the internet.
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Reported by Ashley Huang
With content controlled and monitored so heavily by the Chinese government, would blogging even be possible for bigger government issues? I remember reading articles a few years ago about how bloggers in China would just censor themselves in an effort to reduce problems with officials. Do you think this change in ideology will spark a new wave of Chinese bloggers who are less afraid to speak their mind?
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