Little things can make a big difference

Biz Stone points out that“weak-tie”phenomenon contributed to the success of The American Revolution. The reason why Chinese government blocks Twitter is to prevent people discuss something negative about them and avoid riots caused by this kind of discussion. The Chinese government wants to consolidate their power by block the freedom of speech.

As a Chinese, I can not log on twitter in China. I like to use sina weibo, which like Chinese twitter. No doubt, weibo is worse than twitter if you talk about some Chinese sensitive cases. However, weibo indeed takes effect on Chinese society. There are many negative news and information on weibo, and more and more Chinese people know and forward thousands of weibos everyday.

This is a self-media era, everyone can express his or her viewpoints on social media. Chinese government is afraid to open twitter because they know twitter may lead to activism. But the more the government stop the more people want to express. Many Chinese people have found empathy with each other on weibo. They discuss and oppose some negative affairs together. It is not impossible to start a movement since many people get together on weibo.

Nowadays, you can not live without social media. It has functions of surveillance, mobilization and watchdog. “Small Change”dismisses leaderless, self-organizing systems as viable agents of change. There are 600,000,000 weibo accounts now, it has a big effect to China for sure. More Chinese people are striving for freedom of speech though social media, and social media really changes Chinese society.