就推特封号的声明
龚小夏, PhD
My Statement
By Sasha Gong, PhD
五月三十一日星期五下午，推特没有给出任何理由便封了我的账号。
In the afternoon of Friday, May 31, Twitter suspended my account (@Sasha_Gong) without providing any probable cause.
我是一位职业记者、学者、作者。2012年2月，我注册了推特账号。几年中，我发出了六千多条推文，其中相当大一部分转推各种媒体。我自己的推文多数是用中文写的，因为我知道数以百万计的中国人会翻越专制政府的防火墙到推特上去寻求真相。自青少年时代起，我就是一位中国的政治异见者。我将传播真相与自由的信息作为神圣的使命。成为美国公民之后，这一使命便成为我的终生职业。
I am a journalist, a scholar, and a published author. I joined Twitter in February 2012. Since then, I sent out over 6,000 tweets, many of which were retweets from news media. I wrote most of my own tweets in Chinese, knowing that millions of truth-seekers would find their ways to cross the great firewall built by the totalitarian government to read them. Since very young age, as a political dissident in China, I took spreading the message of truth and freedom as my God-given duty. After becoming a proud American, I devoted my entire professional career to the same duty.
我的推特账号积攒了六万两千多粉丝。在中文世界里，我在读者中有从来不使用肮脏与侵略性语言的名声。但是，我从不隐瞒自己的政治观点。我反对中国共产党的专权。我鼓励中国人民追求自由与民主。我谴责专制与政治迫害。中共及其支持者们总是要设法禁止我发声。但是美国公司推特为什么也这样做？
My twitter account accumulated more than 62,000 followers throughout years. In the Chinese-speaking world, I am known to be a writer who never used any foul and offensive languages. However, I never hide my political conviction – I oppose the Chinese communist regime. I encourage the Chinese people to pursuit freedom and democracy. I condemn dictatorship and political persecution. I understand that the forces backed by Chinese government always want to block my voice. But Twitter, an American company?
在几个小时内，我发现我不是推特打击的唯一目标。成千上万以中文发推的账号在同一个星期五下午被封杀，这是六四屠杀三十周年纪念日的前夜。我至今找到的所有被封杀的账号的言论对共产党政府都不友好。推特的行动看起来与中国政府的做法非常协调，因为中共在六四三十年纪念日前发起了对所有不同声音的严厉封锁。因此网上有人将此成为“推特大屠杀”。
Within hours, I found out that I was not the only target. Thousands of twitter accounts of Chinese-speakers were suspended in the same Friday afternoon, prior to the 30th anniversary of the June 4th Tiananmen Massacre. So far, every suspended account I have located was critical of the Chinese government. Twitter’s action seems to be in accordance with that of the Chinese authorities, who launched sever crackdown against any criticism in the eve of the big anniversary. No wonder many Chinese call it “the twitter massacre”.
这是一个严重的事件。
This is not a joking matter.
在注册推特账号的同一年，我在中国互联网上注册了一个微博账号。一年中，该账号聚集了六十万粉丝。中国政府将其关闭。后来，我在中国的粉丝中有大批人受到秘密警察的威胁与讯问。当时我非常庆幸自己生活在美国，宪法第一修正案保证了人民的言论自由。星期五，推特的打击让我重新体验到专制的味道。
The year I registered my twitter account, I also registered a similar social media account – weibo – in the Chinese web. Within one year, my weibo account attracted 600,000 fans. It was shut down by the Chinese government. Later, many of my social media fans in China were harassed and interrogated by the secret police. At the time, I felt most grateful that I lived in the United States, the great nation protected by the First Amendment. On Friday, with one strike, Twitter gave me the foul taste of dictatorship.
自1989年天安门屠杀以来，我们目睹了苏联东欧共产政权的垮台以及中国资本权贵专制主义的兴起。中共以其掌握的巨大资源控制了中国的一切言论空间，同时将影响扩展到全球的华人社会，扼杀了中文世界中几乎所有的反对声音。
Since the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, we have witnessed the fall of communism in the Eastern Block, and the rise of a new kind of mercantile totalitarianism in China. With massive resources, the Chinese Communist Party monopolizes the entire field of the public rhetoric inside China. CCP has also extended its influence in the Chinese communities around the globe, leaving little space for political dissent in the Chinese-speaking world.
西方的社交媒体平台——特别是推特、脸书、油管——这些年来成为中国不同声音的避难所。不幸的是，这些美国公司受到巨大市场的吸引，向中共倾斜，不惜破坏言论自由这个美国的立国之本。
Social media platforms, especially Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, have become refuges of dissenting voices for the Chinese people. Unfortunately, lured by the promise of a great market, these American companies are tilting toward CCP, and are compromising the American founding principles of freedom of speech.
在六四屠杀三十年前夕，推特的大规模封号行动再次提醒了美国人民。在这场自由与专制的世纪战争中，我们要告诉这些社交巨无霸：你如果不和我们站在一起，你就是站在我们的对立面。
In the eve of the 30th anniversary of June 4th massacre, the massive suspension of Twitter accounts gives us Americans another sever warning. We must tell the social media giants: in this epic fight for freedom, if you are not with us, you are against us.