'End the CCP': Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey calls for fall of the Chinese Communist Party
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call
- Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey tweeted "end the CCP" after China rolled out strict COVID-19 measures.
- China requires citizens to download an app displaying green, yellow, or red colors depending on their health.
- CNN found that the government was already using the surveillance method for other means.
Jack Dorsey isn't a fan of the Chinese Communist Party.
On Saturday, Twitter's co-founder and former CEO voiced his apparent support for the ending of the Chinese Communist Party after the nation implemented stricter COVID-19 policies.
Dorsey retweeted an early June post from a Beijing-based CNN reporter detailing China's stringent measures that she had to follow, which includes constant testing and a mandatory health app that authorities can track people through. In the video, the CNN reporter said that "this surveillance will stay long after Covid is gone."
"End the CCP," tweeted Dorsey in response.
—jack (@jack) August 6, 2022
Dorsey did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
As CBS News reported, the health app decides where you can go and if you're allowed to go there — a green light means a user is COVID-free and can enter public places. Yellow means there is danger of infection, and red indicates that a person needs to isolate or quarantine.
CNN previously reported that the government was already using the app for means other than mere contact tracing — residents in the Chinese province of Henan saw their health codes turn from green to red in mid-June after staging a protest outside a bank that had frozen their deposits.
The CCP has a long history of surveillance of its citizens, a practice that has especially spiked since 2020 when the pandemic hit. Chinese officials were using sophisticated technology like facial recognition cameras and flying drones to make sure people were wearing masks that March.
The government also appears to have implemented a similar health app that displays green, yellow, and red colors indicating infection levels in early March 2020. The software used data from citizens' Alibaba accounts to estimate their health and then shared it with law enforcement.
Experts told Insider's Alexandra Ma at the time that China could maintain this kind of mass data collection even after COVID-19 is less of a public health crisis.