In an op-ed published on Jan. 12, Global Times's columnist Yang Sheng refers to Big Tech’s banning of Donald Trump as a form of “digital execution” and warns that by banning a U.S. President, internet giants like Twitter, Google, Apple and Amazon have set a precedent, and could later “punish another leader in Europe with political values different from the U.S. establishment elites.” While Yang references unnamed “Chinese experts'’ saying it’s understandable that U.S. social media giants must ban accounts to avoid more violence across the country, he warns that these actions are not based on the law “but on rules made by the companies,” showing that these firms are “increasingly powerful and unchallengeable to some extent.” This is the U.S.’s “digital hegemony,” which shows that “the power center of the U.S. capitalist system is still Wall Street.”
Of particular interest is Yang’s mention of the analysis by Shen Yi, a professor at Fudan University’s School of International Relations and Public Affairs, who asserts that the measures that Democrats and social media have imposed on Trump and his supporters following the events of Jan. 6, is “a classic tactic for the U.S. to overthrow a government overseas—using a conflict as an opportunity to incite the public by selectively spreading or muting specific information online,” to dominate public opinion and create conditions for a color revolution or a coup and eliminate a political force with fabricated justification. “The result has proven that the tactic is very effective,” Shen says.
