Causecast

by SARAH NELSON, Contributing Writer

This weekend, the whole world is gearing up for the celebration of the twenty year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Well, almost the whole world – save the 1.2 billion people living in China. The collapse of the Berlin Wall has long been a sensitive subject for those in power in China because of its proximity in time to the Tiananmen Square incident that occurred just months before. Turns out 1989 was a pretty big year for man vs. the system – all over the world.

In an effort to keep the spirit of Communism alive in Asia, the Chinese Government has blocked its citizens from taking part in the cyber-festivities happening on the Fall of the Berlin Wall Twitter Page. The Twitter page was created to provide a means for people all over the world to express their responses and wishes leading up to the anniversary on November 9.

Since the October 20 launch of the Twitter page, more than 2,000 Chinese Internet users have expressed their sentiments about the anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall – of course, these responses came before the site was blocked. Ironically, most of the comments were a demand for an end to Chinese censorship.

The Twitter blockade is not the first episode in Chinese web censorship. Prior to the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square incident in June, Chinese censors launched a major blackout against web users in China to minimize support for democracy. If you pretend Tiananmen Square never happened, maybe everyone will just forget.

Currently there are only 14,000 Chinese Facebook users taking part in the world’s largest social network. It’s not because they’re not interested; it’s because they’re not allowed. Chinese censors have blocked citizens from the site, along with other sites like YouTube, Flickr, and even Hotmail. Chinese Internet users are imploring their government to stop with the Internet censorship and take down what they are calling “the Great Firewall.”

So censorship continues in China as the rest of the world remembers 20 years of post-wall Germany. Follow the Berlin Wall Twitter Page and be part of the movement to end unnecessary censorship in China. To find out what websites are blocked in China and what you can do to support the collapse of “the Great Firewall,” check out the Great Firewall webpage.

Photo by exfordy, flickr.