including cnn have been relying on information from this twitter account, and there's only one man behind it, lee, a chinese painter in italy whose identity we're hiding for security reasons. >> translator: this account -- when you post something within china it will quickly disappear. this account can document all these historical events that cannot be saved inside the country. >> reporter: his account quickly turned into one of the world's key sources for protest information. li said he received thousands per day. people used virtual private networks or vpns which are prohibited in china to access twitter and send their videos li. what's the motivation behind all the work you do? >> translator: it's to let people inside china climb out of
historic. he's doing the work that he hopes one day chinese journalists and chinese citizens from within china will be able to do without fear. >> salina wang joins us now from beijing. salina, the authorities cracked down on the protests. we aren't seeing major demonstrations, so is li still busy with the twitter account? >> reporter: yeah, anderson. li told me every day he's still going through hundreds of submissions and spending 6 to 7 hours on the account every day. he's getting messages from people about all sorts of challenges across the country including the continued covid chaos and restrictions despite the recent easing of rule. now, he started using twitter just as a personal outlet because all of his accounts on chinese social media kept on getting banned, and he said he never expected to become this influential, and he told me that he hopes one day he isn't needed anymore because what he said is that it's sad and ridiculous that you have a painter in italy anonymous lecollecting all the footage from brave people in
>> his parents frequently call him in fear, he says, and the chinese authorities have been harassing them, as well, may he midnight visits to their home in china. what price do you think you have to pay for the work that you do? >> this account is more important in my life. i will not shut it down. i have arranged for someone else to take over if something bad happens to me. i am mentally prepared. even if authorities will let me see my parents. >> authorities in china trying to keep the country in a parallel universe, but li is playing a pivotal role in breaking that bubble. he spends hours a day on the account, only taking breaks to feed his cat, and barely slept during the peak of protests. as he sorted and verified the endless stream of video submissions, each one urgent and historic. he is doing the work that he hopes one day chinese journalists and chinese citizens from within china will be able to do without fear. >> selina wang joins us now from beijing.
the great firewall, to see what's happening in this very moment. >> reporter: but that's exactly what authorities want to prevent. here's what happens if you search for information aboutgy of the protests on chinese social media. you get a notice that says, sorry, no relevant results are found. meanwhile, on li's twitter account he was rapidly uploading videos of demonstrations across china to shanghai where protesters chanted for xi jinping to step down, calling for freedom and an end to zero covid. and researchers say the chinese government is even trying to bury information about the protests from social media users abroad. search on twitter and chinese characters for cities that had protests and you get this, a flood of spam and porn advertisements. the spam campaign, researchers say, appears to be the work of chinese authorities. twitter did not respond to a request for comment. are you worried about your own
in china where the people have risen up in ways you hardly ever see there. the country is finally easing some of its strict covid policies after mass protests swept the nation, lifting >> would cripple side for years. one man can take credit for bringing those protests and information to light, risking his own life by doing so. he spoke exclusively to our selina wang. >> video after video of historic anti zero-covid protests in china broadcast on the world television screens everywhere but inside china, where authorities censored all evidence of the protests. so how did these images managed to get beyond chinese controlled internet? newsrooms around the world, including cnn, have been relying on information from this twitter account. this only one man behind it, lee, a chinese painter in italy whose identity we are hiding for security reasons. [speaking non-english]
sorry, no relevant results are found. meanwhile on he is twitter account he was rapidly uploading videos of demonstrations across china. from various cities, to shanghai, where protesters chanted for xi jinping to step down, calling for freedom and an end to zero covid. and researchers say the chinese government is even trying to bury information about the protests from social media users abroad. search on twitter and chinese characters for cities that had protests and you get this. a flood of spam and porn advertisements. the spam campaign researchers say it appears to be the work of chinese authorities. twitter did not respond to a request for comment. are you worried about your own safety? >> [speaking non-english] >> translator: i get a lot of anonymous harassment saying i know where you are, where you live, and i will kill you.
selina, the authorities crackdown on the protests. we're not see major demonstrations. is still busy with a twitter account? >> yes, anderson, he told me that every day he is still going through hundreds of submissions and spending 6 to 7 hours on the account every day. he's getting messages from people about all sorts of challenges across the country, including the continued covid chaos and restrictions despite the recent easing of rules. he started using twitter as a personal out lap because all of his accounts on chinese social media kept getting banned. he said he never expected to become this influential, and you told me that he hopes that one day he isn't needed anymore, because what he said is that it is sad and ridiculous that we have a painter in italy anomalously collecting footage from brave people in china. but as people in china try to get around censorship, the authorities are cracking down harder. the government recently announced internet users in china could be punished for even liking posts that authorities consider illegal or harmful. so the space for people inside
>> translator: this account maybe assemble the chinese people are still pursuing freedom of speech. this account can document all these historical events that cannot be saved inside the country. >> his account quickly turned into one of the world key sources for protesting formation. li since he received thousands of submissions today is the demonstrations unfolding. apps like twitter, youtube, and instagram are banned in china, but people used virtual private networks, or vpn, which are prohibited in china, to access twitter and send their videos to you li. >> what's the motivation behind all the work you do? >> [speaking non-english] >> translator: it's to let people inside chana china climb out of the fire wall and see what's happening. >> that's exactly what authorities want to prevent. here is what happens if you search for information about any of the protests on chinese social media. you get a notice that says,
platforms had not become for this type of doxxed information on not just the personnel, the magistrate who signed off on this and also their families. as you pointed out in the intro, the school that one of the kids went to was bandied about there and was al howard to be left up for days, and it was to the taken down until we reached out to truth social which, again, is under trump's control since he's the head honchor. he's one of the founders. it's his company. they didn't take it down until after we reached out for contempt and until after we published story last night and, look, like to make sure we weren't being completely unfair because there are a lot of things that happen on a lot of different social media platforms that aren't necessarily the fault of the people, shall we say, of the people who owned them. we did a quick search on twitter. we did a search on twitter, just a one-on-one comparison between truth social and twitter.com and
foreign -- a person from china, so i just curious to hear your thoughts. what do you think? >> well, you mentioned the term twitter wannabe earlier in terms of what trump's attempt as building a maga social media. it's truth social, and at its very best form currently it's a twitter wannabe. unfortunately, for trump, nothing more so no in terms of how much of a player it's going to be in terms of radicalization, that depends on how much popularity it's going to gain and right now that's a little bit questionable and what we do know in terms of the level of maga-related popularity that it does have is that in recent days ever since the fbi raid on trump's home and private florida club in mar-a-lago, truth social had become a haven in the way that other social media platforms and more shall we say mainstream social media