"Ma is featured prominently in veteran journalist Yi-Ling Liu's new book The Wall Dancers, which explores the eternal tension between control and freedom on the Chinese internet. I spoke with Liu earlier this week at an event in New York City's Chinatown. The cozy Asian-American bookstore hosting us was stuffed to the brim, and there wasn't even standing room left."
"Liu's book, she explained to me, is about people who have constantly had to navigate the shifting boundaries of what's allowed and not allowed on the Chinese internet. "It meant living in a society where a gay dating app could go viral one year and then get shut down the next, or hip hop music could become super popular one month and then get shut down the next," she said."
Blued grew into the world's largest gay dating app, surpassing Grindr in users and later listing on Nasdaq. Its founder, Ma Baoli, served as a Chinese police officer and ran an online forum for gay men for a decade before coming out at work. Ma publicly shook hands with Li Keqiang four months before Li became premier, and Li thanked him during the photo op. The phrase "to dance with shackles" captures how journalists and citizens navigate stringent online censorship, where platforms or cultural trends can go viral one moment and be shut down the next. An event in New York City's Chinatown drew a packed audience.
Read at WIRED
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