Group Three.

In Hanson’s reading this week, she describes how China’s authoritarian government is containing the access to the Web in China. It is very interesting how despite the, “nine state-controlled backbone networks” (p 185), Chinese “netizens” use non-restricted sites to partially circumvent the censorship that the Chinese government tries to impose. One such incident is occurred this past summer during the high-speed rail train wreck. The July 23 collision of two passenger trains near the eastern city of Wenzhou killed 40 people, left 191 injured and was proving to be an ailing political problem for Beijing. The Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda office instructed the media to play down coverage of the accident and emphasize positive news in their weekend reports but did not cite a cause to the crash. So, Chinese citizens turned to Weibo, Twitter’s Chinese counterpart, as the primary channel to inquire how the tragic high-speed train accident occurred. Chinese public opinion and doubts about the accident were filled with anger and doubt, especially since people on the train communicated how the crash occurred. Survivor Yangjuan Quanyang’s Weibo account broke the news by posting a plea for help at 8:47 pm local time, where she wrote,“Our train bumped into something. Our carriage has fallen onto its side. Children are screaming . . . Come to help us please! Come fast!” In ten hours, her plea was reposted more than 100,000 times and the criticism continue to grow. Hundred of thousands of votes were casted in online polls where netizens illustrate that are wholeheartedly dissatisfied with how the government handled the crash. This type of communication technology holds the government accountable to respond, despite the Party wanting to impose silence about the incident from the onset.