Students for a Free Tibet
The following is from the Students for a Free Tibet UK website at:
Social media http://www.sftuk.org/digital-tibet/social-media/
"It’s pretty clear the Chinese government doesn’t like social media. And it isn’t surprising either; the regime does to great effort and expense to build up propaganda about it’s own dubious practices, then new technologies emerge which allow people living under its control to gain and share information from alternative sources and even express their own views to potentially billions of people without a moment’s notice. How do you control that? The answer is, in the long run, you can’t.
But that hasn’t stopped China trying, and the CCP has done better than any other government in limiting ordinary people’s access to services like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. The ‘great firewall’ is a huge investment for China, and it’s one the CCP feels it needs to continue to make to keep up with new digital channels and attempt to keep people convinced of its rhetoric about human rights, Tibet, corruption and the level of public protest in Chinese-controlled territory. But the problem is that freedom of information is itself a human right, and new platforms which allow people to harness that right are constantly becoming available. Can even China block the free flow of information; the very nature of the world wide web, forever?
If you’re reading this, you’re either in a country which allows you to practice your basic right to information access or you’re using one of the many tricks people living under the PRC are learning to get around state controls. We can use our rights to do what Tibetans in Tibet are prevented from doing, and what they can be arrested, tortured and imprisoned for life for doing. We can use our access to information and the peer-to-peer nature of the internet to share the truth about Tibet.
So please post links to Tibet news stories on your Twitter feed, share videos smuggled out of Tibet on your Facebook page and talk about Tibet on your blog. It just takes a moment for us to do it, but doing the same in Tibet could mean a lifetime of torment. In some ways it seems old fashioned, but web 2.0 makes word of mouth (or of microblog!) the best way to keep the Tibetan cause in people’s minds and bring more supporters into the movement. We can all use our freedom to spread the word."
But that hasn’t stopped China trying, and the CCP has done better than any other government in limiting ordinary people’s access to services like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. The ‘great firewall’ is a huge investment for China, and it’s one the CCP feels it needs to continue to make to keep up with new digital channels and attempt to keep people convinced of its rhetoric about human rights, Tibet, corruption and the level of public protest in Chinese-controlled territory. But the problem is that freedom of information is itself a human right, and new platforms which allow people to harness that right are constantly becoming available. Can even China block the free flow of information; the very nature of the world wide web, forever?
If you’re reading this, you’re either in a country which allows you to practice your basic right to information access or you’re using one of the many tricks people living under the PRC are learning to get around state controls. We can use our rights to do what Tibetans in Tibet are prevented from doing, and what they can be arrested, tortured and imprisoned for life for doing. We can use our access to information and the peer-to-peer nature of the internet to share the truth about Tibet.
So please post links to Tibet news stories on your Twitter feed, share videos smuggled out of Tibet on your Facebook page and talk about Tibet on your blog. It just takes a moment for us to do it, but doing the same in Tibet could mean a lifetime of torment. In some ways it seems old fashioned, but web 2.0 makes word of mouth (or of microblog!) the best way to keep the Tibetan cause in people’s minds and bring more supporters into the movement. We can all use our freedom to spread the word."
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