{"id":244441,"date":"2022-11-27T16:20:13","date_gmt":"2022-11-28T00:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=244441"},"modified":"2022-11-30T14:23:46","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T22:23:46","slug":"in-tweets-protests-break-out-across-china-after-urumqi-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2022\/11\/in-tweets-protests-break-out-across-china-after-urumqi-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"In Tweets: Protests Break Out Across China After Urumqi Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The current wave of protests across China in the wake of a deadly fire in Urumqi<\/a> has been closely tracked and analysed on Twitter by on-the-ground observers, with others relaying content from Chinese social media, and still others providing context and commentary from elsewhere. Frustration with China’s unpredictable and rigid zero-COVID regime<\/a> has been mounting for some time<\/a>, including offline eruptions from a solo protest in Beijing on the eve of the recent Party Congress<\/a> to mass actions<\/a> by workers at Foxconn’s plant in Zhengzhou<\/a>. The latest wave of protests is fueled by suspicions that COVID restrictions are to blame for the fire deaths, and that the true death toll has been concealed. It marks a significant escalation, appearing to cross the geographic and ethnic lines that have tended to isolate political movements in the past, and including some explicit calls for broad political change. CDT will have more news and translation coverage soon.<\/p>\n

The torrent of information underscores Twitter’s exceptional value as a channel for breaking news. On Mastodon<\/a>, the decentralized network widely embraced as an alternative to Twitter after the latter’s controversial recent sale to tech tycoon Elon Musk, many users lamented the relative paucity of information circulating there, much of which had itself originated from Twitter. At the same time, though, the wealth of information posted to Twitter also highlights what is at stake amid mounting questions<\/a> over the site’s ability to moderate content, ward off malicious interference, and even reliably stay online under its new management.<\/p>\n

One person chronicling events was the Associated Press\u2019 Dake Kang, whose carefully measured thread contextualized the protests and the events that triggered them with the AP\u2019s own reporting:<\/p>\n

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The Urumqi apartment fire and protests are crystallizing anger just as large swaths of China seems poised to hurtle into further lockdowns as case counts explode. A volatile combination\u2026https:\/\/t.co\/uvTPa0BXbD<\/a><\/p>\n

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) November 26, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n