Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at UC Berkeley’s School of Information and the founder and editor-in-chief of China Digital Times, a bilingual China news website, discusses China’s Model of Digital Authoritarianism. A theoretical physicist by training, he became a full-time human rights activist after the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989. Xiao was the executive director of the New York–based NGO Human Rights in China from 1991 to 2002 and vice chairman of the steering committee of the World Movement for Democracy. In Fall 2003, he launched China Digital Times to aggregate, contextualize, and translate online information from and about China. Xiao’s current research focuses on state censorship, propaganda, and disinformation, as well as emerging AI-driven mass surveillance and social control in China. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship.
