China claims U.S. uses Facebook and YouTube to sow unrest

A Chinese government think tank has said that the U.S. and other Western governments are using social networking sites such as Facebook to cause political unrest.

As a result, the think tank has called for stepped-up security of the popular sites. Fox News reports that China's communist government is growing increasingly sensitive to any online threats to its authority. Beijing does operate a rather extensive system of monitoring and censorship of material that has been considered subversive, but the Internet is still the most open forum for discussion in a country where traditional media is highly scrutinized by the state. Fox News adds that Twitter has emerged as a place for dissidents and other people that are politically like-minded to gather and voice their complaints and share information. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are routinely banned by the Chinese government, but savvy users can jump China's so-called "Great Firewall" with proxy servers. A report released this week by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences says that the sites harbor an external threat. It adds that social networking sites threaten state security because the U.S. and other Western countries are using them to foment instability. Fox News adds from the report:

We must pay attention to the potential risks and threats to state security as the popularity of social networking sites continues to grow. We must immediately step up supervision of social networking sites.

The report also cited unnamed U.S. officials as saying that social networking is an "invaluable tool" for overthrowing foreign governments. As an example of the U.S. threat, the report also quoted a comment by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said new communication technology is a "huge strategic asset". The report also claimed that Facebook and other social networking sites were used as tools of "political subversion" in the mass protest that followed the Iranian elections last year. The report also stated that they played a role in the violence in China's far-western region of Xinjiang last summer, where about 200 people were left dead. It states that the online groups located overseas had issued calls for independence for the area, which is traditionally Muslim.