Chinese netizens flood Obama’s Google+ page when unblocked

Google+, the Internet giant Google’s social networking site, has been blocked in China by its “Great Firewall” along with Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and may others that Chinese authorities deem harmful and unacceptable, since it was launched in 2011.But over the past few days, Chinese netizens unexpectedly found they could access the site. It was interesting that Chinese netizens spontaneously called to concentrate their presence on the US. President Obama’s page, in the style of western “Occupy” campaigns (such as “Occupy Wall Street”), by taking advantage of such a glitch in the “Great Firewall” censorship system.Thousands of Chinese netizens have flooded Obama’s page during the period, and each topic on the page has attracted hundreds of comments until reaching the topic’s 500 comment limit. Besides the jokes, Chinese netizens mainly talked about freedom of expression and human rights, as well as more mundane issues such as how to get US green cards.

“We have no chance to occupy our president Hu. He hates Internet and has no account on any sns website, so we can just occupy Obama, forgive us.” One Chinese netizen made an apology.“Many people don’t understand the meaning why all Chinese are coming here. We envy American people their democracy and freedom!” one netizen said in English under Obama’s latest posting about his campaign’s bumper stickers.“We are not barbaric people, we are just suppressed,” one netizen wrote, while others called on the US president to “come and liberate China.”Some netizens urged Obama to help free activists such as blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚), who is currently under house arrest, or Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波), the jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner.Many of those posting comments also enquired about green cards — US permanent residency certificates — asking Obama to send them one along with his campaign stickers.One called on the US president to join China’s ruling Communist Party.“We will give you a big red flower, which you can wear on your chest, and honourably give you a party certificate (completely free membership for the first year),” said the online user, named Duke Dai.Such a bizarre incident however also promoted a commenter to suggest that the United States should have a Great Firewall of its own too to protect its social media from Chinese occupation.