On this edition of Your Call’s Media Roundtable, we discuss the widespread protests in China over the country’s zero Covid policy, and how the government is using its vast security and mass surveillance system to stifle the protests.
Chinese authorities have initiated the highest “emergency response” level of censorship, according to leaked directives, including a crackdown on VPNs and other methods of bypassing online censorship after unprecedented protests demonstrated widespread public frustration with the zero-Covid policy, according to the Guardian.
Guest:
Jiayang Fan, staff writer at The New Yorker
Web Resources:
The New Yorker: Do COVID Protests in China Pose a Threat to Xi Jinping?
The LA Times: Some Chinese cities relax coronavirus controls but step up security after protests
The LA Times: Blank paper, banana peels, ‘shrimp moss’: Chinese dodge internet censors amid protests
The Washington Post: Why China’s covid protests are different
