Publication

This brief examines China's crackdown on political activists and its approach of authorizing only those social media tools which cannot lead to mass mobilization. To illustrate this, the author uses the example of the voicemail service platform Weixin. He explains this service allows users to share their political views with like-minded people, but it is constrained so that users have no mass reach. He also says that the Chinese government will probably refer to this platform to counter US complaints of human rights crackdowns.