What Are the Techniques Used by China to Track Critics on Social Media?

China’s economic and political jump in the last decade has made it one of the most prominent powers in the world.

China did not stop at the overall digital infrastructure and the high security system to control opponents on its own platforms, but it is going to even greater extent in order to expand its internet dragnet to expose and suppress anyone who criticizes the country system on Twitter or Facebook or on any other social media.

The New York Times, NYT, has examined government procurement documents and legal records to find out that Chinese new investigations that target blocked sites inside China, are mainly relying on “sophisticated technological methods to expand the reach of Chinese authorities and the list of targets.”

 

A Digital Manhunt

Based on interviews with one government contractor and six people pressured by the Chinese police, New York Times has revealed that China is trying hard to whiten the image of an authoritarian and repressive system by hunting critics on social media especially on Twitter and Facebook.

To do so, Chinese authorities have turned to “sophisticated investigative software” to keep an eye on anonymous critics on overseas social media. The college students and non-Chinese nationals are among Chinese authorities’ victims.

According to the New York Times inquiry, Chinese security forces use modern investigation software, and “public records and databases” to detect all the personal information and international social media presence of the opponents. The American magazine reported also that these advanced operations of detection sometimes select those living outside oversea.

Chinese authorities are harassing critics both inside and outside China, and threatening their relatives in order to force them to delete their Twitter and Facebook posts that are considered as “crimes.”

The video below, recorded by a Chinese student living in Australia, is showing clearly how the police officer had summoned her father, and pushed her to remove her Twitter account because of an ‘appropriate post’ as mentioned in the video. Despite the account's different name, the authorities could reveal who is standing behind the fake Twitter account.

(the video’s link)

These new tactics raise questions about the spread of powerful investigative software and bustling data markets that can make it easy to track even the most cautious social media user on international platforms. U.S. regulators have repeatedly blocked Chinese deals to acquire American technology companies over the access they provide to personal data. They have done much less to control the widespread availability of online services that offer location data, social media records and personal information.

 

A Long History of Repression

According to the international online news magazine, The Diplomat, the Chinese footprints of repression and abuse are highly represented by hunting down the political and even religious refugees, no matter the country they flee to; to do so, the Chinese communist system is always demanding the help of the other governments.

Among the recent cases of political repression was Nepali police detention of “five Tibetans when they attempted to discreetly participate in elections for Tibet’s government-in-exile in India,” according to the same source.

Because he belongs to the Falun Gong spiritual group, a Chinese–Swedish businessman was stopped in Poland following an Interpol red notice. The man was imprisoned 20 months, and threatened with extradition to China, the magazine reported.

This is not all, the Chinese authorities arbitrarily imprisoned Uyghur doctor Gulshan Abbas for 20 years, “in apparent retribution for her sister speaking publicly in the United States about the human rights crisis in Xinjiang,” The Diplomat reports.

In Hong Kong, activists calling for democracy and justice were systematically put on the Hong Kong police’s “wanted list” under the new National Security Law, despite residing abroad.

This was apparent in the new report published in February 2021, by Freedom House, entitled: Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach. The latter documented several techniques in which people who flee repression in China are still targets to attacks, like detention and physical violence outside their homeland, despite reaching democratic countries.

 

‘We Watch You’

Back to the digital manhunt, the NY Times told Jennifer Chen’s story about the Chinese system of intimidation and repression when she flew back to her hometown in central China last winter, 2021 for Lunar New Year.

Jennifer had around one hundred followers on an anonymous Twitter account, so while being in her home, she "tweeted news and videos, and occasionally made comments censored on Chinese platforms, like voicing her support for Hong Kong’s protesters and her solidarity with minorities who have been interned,” thinking that she was safe, according to the magazine.

Jennifer believed it wasn’t too much, but it was enough for the authorities to pursue her. While she was out, the Chinese police knocked on her parents’ door looking for her.

Ms. Chen said that the police officers “had summoned her to the station, questioned her and then commanded her to delete her Twitter posts and account.”

The American magazine quoted that the authorities kept tracking her when she traveled back to study, “calling her and her mother to ask if Ms. Chen had recently visited any human rights websites.”

These scandalous cases are only “the tip of an iceberg,” coming from a large system of harassment, and intimidation making many Chinese dissidents who live abroad feel that the Chinese Communist Party is always watching them. These tactics affect millions of people “in at least 36 host countries across every inhabited continent,” as reported by NY Times.