Twitter Users in China Face Detention and Threats in New Beijing Crackdown SHANGHAI — One man spent 15 days in a detention center The police threatened - detention center (n): trại giam another’s family A third was chained to a chair for eight hours of interrogation - interrogation (n): tra khảo Their offense: posting on Twitter The Chinese police, in a sharp escalation of the country’s online censorship - online censorship efforts (n): nhũng nỗ lực kiểm duyệt efforts, are questioning and detaining a growing number of Twitter users even trực tuyến though the social media platform is blocked in China and the vast majority of - the vast majority of N (n): đại đa số… people in the country cannot see it The crackdown is the latest front in President Xi Jinping’s campaign to suppress - crackdown (n): đàn áp thẳng tay internet activity In effect, the authorities are extending their control over Chinese - to suppress internet activity (v): đàn áp, ngăn chặn citizens’ online lives, even if what they post is unlikely to be seen in the country hoạt động mạng - to extend someone’s control over sth (v): mở rộng tầm “If we give up Twitter, we are losing one of our last places to speak,” said Wang kiểm soát Aizhong, a human-rights activist who said the police had told him to delete messages criticizing the Chinese government When Beijing is unable to get activists to delete tweets, others will sometimes the job Mr Wang refused to take down his tweets Then, one night last month while he was reading a book, his phone buzzed with text messages from Twitter that contained backup codes to his account An hour later, he said, 3,000 of his tweets had been deleted He blamed government-affiliated hackers, although those who were responsible and the methods they used could not be independently confirmed A Twitter spokeswoman declined to comment on the government campaign China has long policed what its citizens can see and say, including online, but the - to police (v): đảm bảo luật lệ tuân thủ recent push shows that Beijing’s vision of internet control encompasses social media around the world Messages on WhatsApp, which is blocked in China, have begun to appear as evidence in Chinese trials The Chinese government has increasingly demanded that Google and Facebook take down content that officials object to even though both companies’ sites are inaccessible in China After the exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui used the platforms to lob graft accusations at top Chinese leaders, Facebook and Twitter suspended his accounts temporarily, citing user complaints and the disclosure of personal information - officials (n): cán bộ, viên chức quyền - to suspend someone’s account (v): tạm ngưng, tạm chặn tài khoản - the disclosure of personal information (n): tiết lộ thông tin cá nhân Twitter may be banned in China, but the platform plays an important role in political debate and the discussion of issues in the country To access the service, - to access the service (v): sử dụng dịch vụ a small but active community uses software to circumvent the government’s - to circumvent the government’s controls over sth (v): controls over what people can see online According to an estimate based on a luồn lách khỏi kiểm soát phủ survey of 1,627 Chinese internet users last year by Daniela Stockmann, a professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Germany, only 0.4 percent of China’s internet users, roughly 3.2 million people, use Twitter While it remains off limits for people in China, official media outlets like the - off limits (a): không phép bàn tới Communist Party-controlled People’s Daily newspaper and the Xinhua news - media outlets (n): kênh truyền thông agency have used Twitter to shape perceptions of the country in the rest of the - to shape perceptions (v): định hình nhận thức world “On the one hand, state media takes advantage of the full features of these platforms to reach millions of people,” said Sarah Cook, a senior analyst for East Asia at Freedom House, a pro-democracy research group based in the United States “On the other hand, ordinary Chinese are risking interrogation and jail for using these same platforms to communicate with each other and the outside world.” LinkedIn, the business networking service and one of the few American social media outlets allowed in China, has long bowed to the country’s censors It briefly took down the Chinese accounts of Peter Humphrey, a British private investigator who was once imprisoned in China, last month and Zhou Fengsuo, a human-rights activist, this month The company sent emails to both containing language similar to the messages it sends users when it removes posts that violate censorship rules - a human-rights activist (n): nhà hoạt động xã hội nhân quyền - to violate censorship rules (v): vi phạm quy tắc kiểm duyệt “What we’ve seen in recent weeks is the authorities desperately escalating the - the authorities (n): quyền censorship of social media,” Mr Humphrey said “I think it’s quite astonishing that on this cloak-and-dagger basis, LinkedIn has been gagging people and preventing their comments from being seen in China.” Both accounts have been restored In a statement, LinkedIn apologized for taking the accounts down and said it had done so by accident “Our Trust and Safety team is updating our internal processes to help prevent an error like this from happening again,” the statement said With Twitter, Chinese officials are targeting a vibrant platform for Chinese activists Interviews with nine Twitter users questioned by the police and a review of a recording of a four-hour interrogation found a similar pattern: The police would produce printouts of tweets and advise users to delete either the specific messages or their entire accounts Officers would often complain about posts that were critical of the Chinese government or that specifically mentioned Mr Xi The police have used threats and, sometimes, physical restraints, according to - physical restraints (n): cưỡng chế thể chất (vd: bắt giữ, Twitter users who were questioned Huang Chengcheng, an activist with more còng tay, cột tay chân, …) than 8,000 Twitter followers, said his hands and feet were manacled to a chair while he was interrogated for eight hours in Chongqing When the inquiry was over, he signed a promise to stay off Twitter Those pulled in for questioning not necessarily have the biggest presence on the social network Pan Xidian, a 47-year-old construction company employee in Xiamen with about 4,000 followers, posted a comic by a dissident cartoonist known as Rebel Pepper, along with criticism of human-rights crackdowns In November, the police called him in for 20 hours of questioning After being forced to delete several tweets, he was allowed to go, and he thought his ordeal was over But officers showed up at his workplace a short time later and threw him into a car They asked him to sign a document that said he had disturbed the social order He complied Then they showed him a second document, which said he would be detained He spent the next two weeks in a cell with 10 other people, watching propaganda videos “In this era, we certainly know fear, but I can’t control myself,” Mr Pan said while crying during a phone interview after he was released “We’ve been living a very suppressed life.” “We’re like lambs,” he added “They’re taking us one after another We have no ability to fight back.” The crackdown is unusually broad and punitive When censoring domestic social - crackdown (n): đàn áp thẳng tay media in the past, officials have targeted prominent users People were questioned or detained less frequently and more haphazardly The current push appears to be well coordinated between local and national law - law enforcement authoritites (n): quyền đảm bảo enforcement authorities, said Xiao Qiang, a professor at the School of Information cho pháp luật tuân thủ at the University of California, Berkeley “Actually taking nationwide action, physically calling in all of these people, we’ve never seen that before,” he said The new approach involves broad action by China’s powerful Ministry of Public Security, which oversees law enforcement and political security Several Twitter users said local authorities had specifically cited the internet police, a branch of the security ministry that monitors online activity The agency, which refers to - to monitor online activity (v): giám sát hoạt động such local enforcement as “touching the ground,” was taken over last summer by trực tuyến a hard-liner known for a crackdown on telecom fraud in Xiamen, a city on the southeast coast The security ministry and the Cyberspace Administration of China, which regulates the internet, did not respond to faxed requests for comment The police have impressed upon activists that they can see posts outside China’s wall of censorship After a four-hour grilling of a Twitter user with a small following who had complained in a post about the environment, a police officer offered him some advice The user, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of further reprisal, recorded the interrogation and provided a copy of the audio “Delete all your tweets, and shut down your account,” the officer said “Everything on the internet can be monitored, even the inappropriate comments in WeChat groups,” a reference to a popular Chinese messaging app “This is truly wholehearted advice for you,” the officer added “If this happens a second time, it will be handled differently It will affect your parents You are still so young If you get married and have kids, it will affect them.” The efforts have dampened debate on Chinese-language Twitter, said Yaqiu Wang, a China researcher with Human Rights Watch, who chronicled the crackdown in November Still, not all users have gone quietly “Many activists want free speech,” Ms Wang said in an interview “Even when - free speech (n): tự ngôn luận they’re harassed and intimidated, they’re very brave and continue to tweet This - to be harassed (v): bị quấy rối is an act of defiance to censorship and oppression.” - to be intimidated (v): bị đe dọa - an act of defiance to sth (n): hành động chống đối cơng khai tới ... someone’s account (v): tạm ngưng, tạm chặn tài khoản - the disclosure of personal information (n): tiết lộ thông tin cá nhân Twitter may be banned in China, but the platform plays an important... Governance in Germany, only 0.4 percent of China s internet users, roughly 3.2 million people, use Twitter While it remains off limits for people in China, official media outlets like the - off... and the methods they used could not be independently confirmed A Twitter spokeswoman declined to comment on the government campaign China has long policed what its citizens can see and say, including