Jail for a Twitter Update

It is well known that China has prevented its’ citizens from accessing popular social networking websites such as Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. For those who want to use the website, they just have to find a way to circumvent the government’s heavily secured firewall.

            As more and more people try to circumvent these firewalls, China has reacted.  Recently, the Chinese government sentenced a 46 year old woman, Cheng Jiangpeng  to one year re-education in a labor camp for disturbing social order. Her crime was re-tweeting a satirical message on Twitter encouraging Chinese protesters to smash the Japanese Pavillion at the Shanghai Expo.

            She reposted a message originally sent by her fiancé hinting that Chinese protestors should smash the message adding the quote “Angry youth, charge!”. Her fiancé said that her tweet was to mock anti-Japanese protestors who have grown since a recent maritime incident where allegedly a Chinese trawler hit a Japanese coast guard boat.

Cheng's original Twitter post still remains online

            The swift actions by the Chinese government show just how closely. the state monitors web usage in China and how strictly enforced Beijing’s rigid controls can be. Both Twitter and Facebook remain indefinitely banned in the country and Google has been banned and unbanned pending they censor material for the Chinese.