China's "poor human rights record deteriorated markedly throughout the year, as the government intensified efforts to suppress dissent, particularly organized dissent," the report said.
One strategy would be to magnify the impact of your own dissent by organizing a boycott.
The restrictions, which typically involve deleting or censoring politically charged content, seem to be aimed at preventing microblogs and other sites from being used to foster dissent or organize antigovernment protests.
It's a strange story about how a government agency sought to foment the seeds of revolution using the playbook of Twitter, which has become a key tool for voicing political dissent and organizing in politically charged countries around the world, including Egypt, the Ukraine and Turkey.
Back in 2015, when I asked LGBT Indonesians who voted for President Jokowi why they still believed in him, I heard that he, unlike his predecessor, opened up spaces for civil society--that people who work for social justice, democracy and human rights could dissent, advocate, organize.
"China never allowed any organized dissent.
On virtually every count, from crackdowns against organized dissent to conditions in prisons, the report on China was harsh.
To solidify their power, he argues, they have largely excluded Shia from the political process and, in times of unrest, blamed organized dissent or protests on Shia sedition.
In a country where Mr. Assad and his father long conflated dissent with subversion, organized political life remains undeveloped, save for an embryonic civil society along with the Muslim Brotherhood and organized religion.
In the past week, the news media and government officials in Seoul have reported rare outbursts of protest in the North, but said that the episodes seemed isolated and that there were few signs of organized dissent.
