A University of Minnesota student has been imprisoned over satirical social media posts about Xi Jinping in a chilling act of censorship that should make us all grateful for the First Amendment.
Chinese-born international student Luo Daiqing was originally detained in July, following his return home for the summer after completing his spring semester. He was then held until he was charged in November 2019. Axios just recently obtained the court documents which state that Daiqing is being punished for having posted images critical of the Chinese dictator to his anonymous Twitter account.
The news of this detention comes in light of the New York Times report on how people in China are being detained for their tweets. A human rights activist told the newspaper that they do not want to give up Twitter because “if we give up Twitter we are losing one of our last places to speak.” The report also said that the Chinese government deletes tweets itself when the activists refuse.
Sen. Ben Sasse released a statement calling on Xi Jinping to release the student immediately. The Nebraska Republican said, “This is what ruthless and paranoid totalitarianism looks like.” He was joined by Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar who tweeted, “This is what ruthless totalitarianism looks like.” Seeing such similar condemnations come from across the U.S. political spectrum is a good sign that China is clearly in the wrong here.
This is what ruthless totalitarianism looks like.
Luo Daiqing made these posts while he was in the U.S., attending college in my district. Here in the United States, we believe in free speech.
I am calling on the Chinese government to immediately release him. https://t.co/1DN21G5o7k
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 23, 2020
Chinese censorship is nothing new, but this escalation to imprisoning someone with ties to the United States for satirical posts made while in our country should alarm us all. It’s part of a broader, dystopian trend of Chinese technological interference.
The social media app TikTok has drawn blowback for reportedly sending user information back to the Chinese government. A lawsuit even alleges that the app contains Chinese surveillance software. It is worth considering just how connected these two things may be.
The most harrowing aspect of this student’s struggles is that the Chinese government used technology to find the owner of an anonymous account and then have them detained for months before being charged for “denigrating the national leader’s image” and then being sentenced for “provocation.”
The reason that this story is so unthinkable for U.S. residents is because we are blessed to live in a country that continues to retain freedom of speech. The First Amendment is what allows us to criticize “national leaders” and post satire about President Trump without fear of impunity, much the same way it has protected political dissent since the very inception of the Bill of Rights. It is thanks to the First Amendment that any elected official who takes exception to criticism cannot send the offender to jail — a freedom those in China are not afforded and one we should never take for granted.
Ben McDonald (@Bmac0507) is a college student and former Reason magazine intern. He is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
