Elaine Langone Center, 256 - Center Room

Lecture Title: Voices Behind the Great Firewall: How Chinese Citizens Speak and What Their Government Fears Description: Explore the vibrant evolution of China's digital resistance! This lecture delves into how Chinese netizens creatively counter censorship, the Chinese Communist Party's efforts to control narratives, and the profound cultural impact of grassroots online defiance, as documented by China Digital Times over two decades of the country's growing internet presence. About the Speaker: Xiao Qiang is a Research Scientist at UC Berkeley's School of Information and Founder of China Digital Times. A physicist by training, he became a human rights activist after the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, leading Human Rights in China (1991–2002) and receiving a MacArthur Fellowship in 2001. He launched CDT in 2003 to use technology for aggregating and contextualizing information about China. Xiao's research focuses on censorship, propaganda, and AI-driven surveillance in China. He teaches Digital Activism and leads the Counter-Power Lab, exploring innovative tools to promote information freedom. In January 2015, Xiao has been named to Foreign Policy magazine's Pacific Power Index, a list of "50 people shaping the future of the U.S.-China relationship." He was named on the list "for taking on China's Great Firewall of censorship."

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