From Chinese Twitterers: Internet Supervision Official’s “Theory of Local Truth.”
Despite the fact that Twitter has been blocked and several similar China-based micro-blogging sites are inaccessible in China, netizens are still finding ways to jump the Great Firewall to use Twitter, and Chinese-language tweets are still full of interesting comments and insight. For example, some news website editors just attended a routine briefing at the Internet Supervision Office in a major city, and soon afterward comments made by the officials leaked out on Twitter. Below are tweets about the meeting:
“昨天网管办开会，大放厥词。声称网络民意只是一小撮人的意见，就算3亿网友全部支持的事情也只是一小部分人的意见。 还说上网的人都是收入低又年轻的人，无足轻重。”
Yesterday the Internet Supervision Office held a meeting. [The official] gave lots of BS. He claims that online public opinion is only the opinion of a small fraction of people. Even if 300 million netizens all support something, it is still an opinion of the minority. [vs 1.3 billion]. He also said that netizens are all young and have low incomes, and therefore are not important.
“网管办官员发明了“局部的真实”理论。他说，从局部看，可能是真实的，但从整体看，则是不真实的。譬如说， 局部发生暴乱，这个是真实的，但是从全国来看，是安定的，所以说我们国家有暴乱是不真实的。“
The official invented a “theory of local truth.” He said: [certain phenomenon] may be true if you take a local perspective, but if you take the perspective of the whole, it is not true. For example, riots occur locally, it is true. But if you take the perspective of the whole country, [the society] is stable and peaceful; therefore to say our country has riots is not true.
- Another twitterer’s comment to the above: “The head of the Internet supervision office is a passionate idiot.” (“网管办的一哥就是一个热情洋溢的傻逼。”)
To see how the above comment has been retweeted among Chinese twitterers, please click here.
POSTED COMMENTS: 3 Responses
Since 300,000 million people is the size of the USA, one could hardly say that number of people thinking the same thing is minor. That opinion would influence the entire world. It is not the numbers, but the truth of the opinion which can take root.
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