The Twitter Counter-Revolution

[Cross-posted from Accumulating Peripherals]

Despite incidents like yesterday's shootings, it seems that the lid has been firmly fixed back on the boiling kettle of Xinjiang race-relations, so perhaps now is the time to take a look at how this situation developed and was covered by the media, especially as compared to the ongoing situation in Iran. Obviously the situation in Xinjiang is very different, as it involves a revolt within a minority making up less than one percent of the Chinese population rather than the enraged outcry of the majority, but in both we saw autocracies attempt to control information potentially harmful to their rule.

Whilst both the Iranian rebellion and the Urumqi disturbances started with peaceful demonstrations involving university students, the young Uyghurs of Urumqi totally failed to set the agenda in the way that their counterparts in Tehran did. From the first internet access and mobile phone communications in the city were restricted, nor has any video come out yet that I have seen showing the police to have been the drivers of the subsequent largely anti-Han violence. In contrast to Tehran as well as last year's troubles in Tibet, foreign journalists were allowed limited access to the region almost immediately, and their reports largely meshed with those of the local government.

Despite being widely heralded as a potential weapon against autocracy, Twitter had little effect in spreading news about the disturbances unfavourable about the government. Blocked in Xinjiang and now the entirety of mainland China, the reports that were relayed from Xinjiang via it using the rapidly dwindling number of un-blocked proxies were largely repeats of Chinese state media, or reports from Han within the region. I have been unable to find even one Uyghur twitterer in Urumqi (although I would be happy to be put in touch with one) - this is not surprising, whilst China has a good number of people using either Twitter or the Chinese Tweet-a-like FanFou, these are almost entirely east-coast Han Chinese. Essentially, even the Twitterers who managed to get around the block were still largely repeating the government's line, nor has any evidence come out to disprove this line. Uyghur separatist movements carried reports which were, frankly, fanciful, and not borne out by independent reports, neither Rebiya Kadeer nor anyone else in the separatist movement was able to convey a credible message.

Even more impressive were the Chinese authorities actions to prevent a back-lash against the Uyghur. Websites like Anti-CNN.com, a site highly critical of the western media and supportive of the Chinese government often quoted approvingly by state media, were reportedly blocked in an effort to prevent inflamatory anti-Uyghur invective in the wake of the disturbances and the reports of attempted vigilantism by the Han in Xinjiang leading to violence. People's Daily even scrubbed editorials written in the immediate aftermath of the Xinjiang disturbances describing the rioters in excessively condemnatory terms. Compare these actions, those of a dictatorship secure in its position, with the continual accusations of treachery directed at Musavi even before the Iranian elections, and you can see just how expert the Chinese Communist Party's control of information really can be.