Twitter saw a surge in downloads in China as protests against the country’s stringent COVID restrictions erupted nationwide over the last few days.
The social media app ranked 9th amongst all the free iOS apps in China on November 29, up from 150th a week ago, according to app analytics firm SensorTower. Discussion about the protests, a rare act of defiance that has swept across major Chinese cities and universities since the past weekend, is closely monitored by censors and has been largely silenced on local social media. As a result, people are pouring onto foreign alternatives like Twitter to disseminate information and Telegram to organize demonstrations.
The spike in Twitter downloads is intriguing since the app has long been blocked by China’s “Great Firewall”. Accessing the app in China requires the use of a censorship circumvention tool or a virtual private network. The app has, however, remained available for download in th …
