China’s Communist Youth League opens Twitter account amid crackdown on internet access
Social media platform will help Beijing expand its ‘ideological battlefield’ beyond national borders, expert says
The youth wing of the Communist Party of China has opened a Twitter account and last week sent its first tweets, just as Beijing has been stepping up its efforts to prevent the public from accessing the social media platform and viewing other online content it deems inappropriate.
The Communist Youth League of China set up the account – CYL @ccylchina – earlier this month and published the first of its 10 tweets to date on Thursday. The message said the aim of the account was to “deliver information about the league and on issues of interest to young people”. All of the tweets were written in Puthongua.
As of Sunday, the league was following 15 other Twitter accounts, including those of state broadcaster CCTV, Xinhua, China Daily and People’s Daily, and had 384 followers of its own. Already, some of those have questioned why the Youth League was using Twitter when the service was officially blocked in China.
“I would like to ask the Communist Youth League, how come you can use Twitter?” a person wrote on the account’s homepage.
“If you believe Twitter is a good thing, please tell me why [the Chinese government] doesn’t allow its people to use [it]?” another asked.