In November 2022, Li Ying was a painter and art school graduate in Milan, living in a state of sadness, fear and despair. China¡¯s strict pandemic policies had kept him from seeing his parents for three years, and he was unsure where his country was heading.
In China, after enduring endless COVID-19 tests, quarantines and lockdowns, people staged the most widespread protests the country had seen in decades. Many held roughly letter-size paper to demonstrate defiance against censorship and tyranny, in what has been called the White Paper movement.
Then Li did something that he never anticipated would become so significant: He turned his Twitter account into an information clearinghouse. People inside China sent him photos, videos and other witness accounts, at times more than a dozen per second, that would otherwise be censored on the Chinese internet. He used Twitter, which is banned in China, to broadcast them to the world. The avatar on Li¡¯s account, his drawing of a cat that is both cute and menacing, became famous.
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