Fearing Twitter hit China this week, as the government linked microblogging to social unrest and physical disease.
It's classic cyberfear. There's the poison comparison: "rumours are worse because they "poison the social environment and affect social order"."
Then the drug line:
Another [commentary], on People's Daily Online, is titled: "Internet rumours are drugs: please resist and stay away from them." It calls for zero tolerance, suggests they "damage people and society" as narcotics do, and accuses rumour-mongers of having ulterior motives and "kidnapping public opinion".
That Guardian article goes on to quote this useful bit of criticism:
David Bandurski, of Hong Kong University's China media project, said the new commentaries, with their "patina of moral decadence", were "helping to whip up an atmosphere where it's easier to tackle social media … It's part of a general campaign to put more pressure on microblogs".
It would be interesting to track the globalization of haunted spaces rhetoric.
(thanks to Tim Pendry)
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