People use a laptop at a Beijing wireless cafe last summer. In July, Chinese authorities blocked Twitter because of protest-related content.

Microblogging spreads in China, even without Twitter BEIJING  When Chinese student Rachel Zhang discovered Twitter last April, she realized her "little dream" of sharing with strangers the movies that made her laugh and the books that made her cry. Then, in July, Beijing blocked the U.S.-based microblogging site, where users post brief updates as fast as they can tap on their cellphones. Zhang, 24, a postgraduate student at Communication University of China, fell silent. That is, until Chinese media giant Sina launched its own Twitter-like service recently. But that service came with a price: Chinese authorities can monitor traffic and curtail its use. "No one likes to have second thoughts before writing personal blogs," she says. Microblogging — the sending of brief text, audio or video to select groups — is growing rapidly among China's estimated 360 million Internet users, according to New Weekly magazine in China. The magazine's Jan. 15 cover story is titled "Micro Revolution." China shut down Twitter access after it was used to transmit images and messages about riots against the government in western China. YouTube and several other social-networking sites remain blocked, too. But there are many sites that the "Great Firewall of China," as it is widely known, has not impeded. Even on those sites, there is "more debate and criticism by Chinese people than at anytime in history," China Internet specialist Jeremy Goldkorn says. ARCHIVE: Social-networking sites Twitter, Flickr go dark in China TECH LIVE: News and gadgets from USA TODAY reporters "You're seeing networks of people forming links outside the state, and this alarms the state, so they want to monitor microblogging closely," says Goldkorn, whose Danwei website also was blocked in July. "The government is determined to control the discourse on the Internet, and is in a very censorious mode." China's communist authorities don't see all unfettered microblogging as bad. State-controlled media laud the Internet, especially microblogging, for providing the public a way to keep officials in check. "With this new tool, there will be more citizens supervising the government," says Min Dahong, a new-media researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. Beijing's chief concern lies in the Internet's power to mobilize, Goldkorn says. Despite the government's efforts, "the genie is out of the bottle." In December, the Ministry of Public Security promised stricter control of the Internet and closer monitoring of new forums such as microblogging. The Internet "is not only a new technology, new media, but also a new ideological front," the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported this month. Min, a microblogger on both Twitter and Sina, sees more "political issues" discussed on the former. "I think Sina microblog users know the bottom line, so they won't publish radical opinions," Min says. China-based Twitter users must "climb the wall," a phrase describing Internet access through proxy servers that evade the censors. There they can find posts such as Beijing film professor Cui Weiping's short interviews with intellectuals about the Dec. 25 jailing of dissident Liu Xiaobo, punished for his role in a pro-democracy manifesto that was disseminated online. Rachel Zhang knows how to "climb the wall," but rarely bothers. "I believe many microblog users perform their own 'censorship' before the supervisors, because we cherish this platform," she says. "I may read or quote interesting words of others, but I'm careful about what I write down myself." Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more