Dating apps and Telegram: How protesters in China are defying authorities

Many Chinese people are relying on VPN software to get past China's Great Firewall and on to encrypted messaging apps to spread word about the protests against the zero-Covid policy

Opponents of China's anti-COVID measures are resorting to dating apps and social media platforms blocked on the mainland to evade censors, spread the word about their defiance and strategy, in a high-tech game of cat and mouse with police.

Videos, images and accounts of the opposition to China's tough COVID-19 curbs have poured onto China's tightly censored cyberspace since weekend protests, with activists saving them to platforms abroad before the censors delete them, social media users say.

Protesters came out in several Chinese cities for three days from Friday in a show of civil disobedience unprecedented since President Xi Jinping assumed power a decade ago.

Frustration has been building with the stringent zero-COVID policy nearly three years after the coronavirus emerged in the central city of Wuhan but the spark for the wave of protests was a deadly apartment building fire in the western city of Urumqi.

Authorities denied accusations posted on social media that a lockdown had prevented people escaping the blaze but that did not prevent protests on Urumqi streets, videos of which were posted on the Weibo and Douyin social media apps.

Censors tried to scrub them quickly but they were downloaded and reposted not only across Chinese social media but also to Twitter and Instagram, which are blocked in China.

Residents of other cities and students on campuses across China then organised their own gatherings, which they in turn filmed and posted online.