June 4, 2009 12:36PM # New Media, New Repression: China Blocks Social Networking Sites By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) --- SHARE Today marks the 20th anniversary of the massacre of students and other anti-authoritarian protests in Tiananmen square. If you want background info, including causes and the wider political context, check [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989). You can also see stirring videos on [Youtube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-nXT8lSnPQ). There are incredible photos on [Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldofarun/536430948/). And of course Twitter has a wealth of real-time information and thinking about the anniversary. Just search using the hash tag [\#Tiananmen](http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23tiananmen). But for those 1.5 billion people trapped behind the [Great Firewall of China](http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/), absolutely none of those links are accessible. To mark the event that the government assures never happened, the [Chinese government has blocked most social networking sites](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/02/twitter-china). In 1989, when a nascent pro-democracy movement wanted to communicate its vitality and prepare to take on the state, meeting en masse was vital. But that made it fairly easy for the CCP to roll in and crush the dream of democracy. Twenty years later, the Internet is the place where mass movements for liberty can take root. While the CCP is attempting to use the electronic equivalent of an armored division to prevent change, reform today is a question of when, not if. Shutting down open dialogue will only slow the democratic transition to freedom, which the Chinese government cannot ultimately prevent. The leadership of today’s Chinese government should allow that country’s citizens and journalists to communicate openly. The alternative is to suffer eternal loss of face as history records them occupying its wrong side. ##### Related Tags [Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy), [China](https://www.cato.org/china) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).