Twitter CEO tweets reaction to Chinese woman being punished for retweet
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Twitter‘s chief executive, Dick Costolo, posted a tweet Friday addressing the sentencing of a Chinese woman to one year in a labor camp for her retweeting of a message written by her fiance.
‘Dear Chinese Government, year-long detentions for sending a sarcastic tweet are neither the way forward nor the future of your great people,’ Costolo posted on Twitter.
Costolo’s tweet has been retweeted -- reposted by other Twitter users for their ‘followers’ on the website to see -- more than 100 times.
Cheng Jianping, 46, is believed to be the first Chinese citizen sentenced to a labor camp for a post on Twitter, according to Amnesty International, a human rights group.
Cheng was sentenced to “reeducation through labor†for accusations that her retweet of a message on the popular social media website led to her “disturbing social order.â€
On Wednesday, Cheng used her @wangyi09 twitter account to reposted a tweet from her fiance, Hua Chunhui, who tweets as @wxhch.
The original message sarcastically told young Chinese nationalists who have held several recent anti-Japanese rallies to attack the Japanese pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo.
“Anti-Japanese demonstrations, smashing Japanese products, that was all done years ago by Guo Quan [an activist and expert on the Nanjing Massacre],†the original tweet read. “It’s no new trick. If you really wanted to kick it up a notch, you’d immediately fly to Shanghai to smash the Japanese expo pavilion.â€
Cheng reposted the message, adding “Charge, angry youth.â€
Amnesty International said Cheng and Hua were arrested in October on what was to be their wedding day. Hua was released less than a week later.
The Chinese government has officially blocked Twitter, but many are able to find ways to access the site.
Cheng had also posted tweets supporting Liu Xiaobo, a jailed activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Liu Xianbin, a jailed activist who has called for democracy in China.
RELATED:
Chinese woman sent to labor camp after retweeting a message
Chinese interference with Web traffic examined in U.S. government report
-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles