There are two groups of people: those who affirm the Internet’s efficacy in the lives of individuals interacting in a Web 2.0 society, and those who refute it. I have found myself on either side of this coin throughout the years. Today, though, even the most stubborn skeptic will find it difficult to put the latest from Ellen Lee, staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, in a less alarming (and revealing) light.
In her August 5, 2008 “Web Chips Away at China’s Grip on Information,” she describes the recent trials of David Wang. An innocent bystander, David Wang created a “mock newscast criticizing Taiwanese officials” and subsequently uploaded the clip to Tudou, a social-networking site (SNS) in China which is centered around the dissemination of videos (a la YouTube). Days later Wang’s video disappeared.
Lee is fascinated not by the fact that the video disappeared – that seemed a foregone conclusion for such an inflammatory artifact – but by the fact that it remained online for several days. Lee cites this as evidence that China’s status quo may not be so static after all. In fact, in the picture she paints, Lee suggests that all the components of Web 2.0 – blogs and the many flavors of SNS – seem to be challenging normal hierarchies as well as traditional value systems. The result in China, she notes, “is the chipping away of what’s referred to as the Great Firewall of China, by which the government tries to control online content.”