Tweeting public unstoppable in China's new decade

• Source: Global Times
• [08:52 January 04 2010]
• Comments

On the first day of the new decade, one of the hottest Chinese Twitter topics was a one-sentence quote by a 22-year-old college student, who was seriously injured while trying to nab thieves and later died in hospital on New Year's Day.

Yang Jiyuan's last words, on his blog, were: A man can live with no talent or money, but he cannot live without a sense of responsibility.

This was hotly debated online even before traditional media covered the news.

Observers have pointed out that the New Year, and the years ahead in the new decade, may be "complicated" for China. And Twitter adds to that complication.

As seen in Yang's incident, in a country where Internet users have ballooned from 22.5 million in December 2000 to 360 million in November 2009, Twitter, the biggest winner of 2009, has entered the new decade with high hopes and is inseparably linked to the daily life of the Chinese.

While the past decade saw the Internet undergoing dramatic changes – from a medium on the brink of its bubble bursting to one reaching the grass roots – more dramatic and irreversible changes are foreseen in China in the coming decade.

Thanks to the technological potential of cyberspace, more grass-roots voices will be heard, freer flow of information facilitated, and a civil society empowered with the right to know built on a stronger foundation of social responsibility.

But the Internet has been and will always be a double-edged weapon.

Despite its democratic nature that is highly treasured in a transitional society like China, the Internet has inherent limitations.

It can be a source of irrational exuberance as it can be a platform for spreading false information. With its 140-character length limit, as well as faster and simpler-to-use features, Twitter has created more room for misinformation and misinterpretation.

Tougher challenges will be posed to nations worldwide to maintain social order while taking forward technological and societal progress. China is no exception. As indicated by several mass incidents in 2009, political courage and wisdom are needed to stop rumor from spreading and for reshaping public opinion.

It is not the first time in history that technology has reached a tipping point, with a small change creating an unstoppable momentum toward more changes.

It is hard to foresee what may happen in the new decade. But it is certain that another tipping point has been hit by civic-journalism sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. And we can do nothing but embrace it with innovation, vision and savvy.