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Tibetans Use Social Networks to Avoid China's "Great Firewall"

by Dan Reilly on March 23, 2009 at 05:03 PM

Well, it appears social networks are good for something more than just posting funny pictures and committing adultery. According to the Times's Jeremy Page, a group of Tibetan expatriates are logging on to Chinese social networks to chat about the Dalai Lama and their country in an effort to get around laws banning Web sites on the topic.

The Tibetans, fluent in Mandarin, peruse the networks from an office in India and try to initiate conversations in chat rooms and message boards. They're often unsuccessful, since many don't want to discuss politics or talk with another man (the Tibetans often pose as women online in hopes to lure guys into talking with them). One member of the 11-member group says he contacts about 50 people a day, half of whom will respond, and, of those, five or six will get into a serious political conversation. To combat censors, the Tibetans often have to change avatars and screen names, as well as send sensitive information via e-mail, which is harder for the government to police.

According to the group, the goal isn't to get these ordinary people to revolt or protest, but rather to educate them in hopes that someday things will change. "We don't say this is right or wrong, or that the Chinese Government should be overthrown," one messenger told the Times, "we just give people an alternative source of information." There are now several of these outreach groups of Mandarin-speaking Tibetans popping up, and we'd be just fine with seeing even more people joining the cause. [From: Times Online]

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Tags: china, mandarin, politics, social networking, SocialNetworking, tibet

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