Protests against the country's stringent COVID restrictions erupted nationwide over the last few days, which led to a surge in downloads on the social networking site.
According to SensorTower, the social media app was ranked 9th in China on November 29th, up from 150th a week earlier. Discussion about the protests, a rare act of defiance that has swept across major Chinese cities and universities since the past weekend, is closely monitored by censors and has been mostly silenced on local social media. People are using foreign alternatives to spread information and organize protests.
Since the app is blocked in China, the spike in downloads is interesting. To access the app in China, you have to use a censorship circumvention tool. According to Apple Censorship, the app has remained available for download in the Apple App Store since February.
There is a picture of a ranking in the China app store.
It's difficult to determine the size of downloads because of the unavailability of the play store in China. Local tech firms likeHuawei andXiaomi tend to follow local censorship rules when it comes to operating app stores on the Android platform. Apple has come under fire in the past for agreeing to censor requests from some governments.
China-based users will have a hard time finding the information they need, even if they jump over the "Great Firewall" and get on the social networking site. Bot accounts are bombarding searches for Chinese cities with porn, escort ads, and gambling links, making it impossible to look up city related protest news. It doesn't help that Musk axed the team that fought misinformation.
It is not clear how many of the new app installs belong to the protesters.
Access to Western internet platforms is becoming more difficult in China as Beijing continues to block access to certain websites. Government authorization is not enough to make all VPNs providers illegal. There was an unprecedented blockade in the country in October. It won't be a surprise if the authorities tighten their grip on VPNs after this wave of protests
Great Wall of porn obscures China protest news on Twitter
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