Web rise in China

Shenzhen, China - When Jiang Dabao lost a hand to a molding machine three years ago, his boss said he wasn't eligible for workers' compensation. Unemployable, Jiang whiled away his days in the Internet bars that thrive in China's manufacturing heartland.

Eventually he tapped into QQ, a popular social networking service, where he found a worker advocacy group that helped him win a $30,000 settlement, said Jiang, who identified himself by his childhood nickname for fear of official reprisal.

Forums have become the Chinese proletariat's equivalent of Facebook or Twitter and are seen by some as the beginnings of a labor movement.

Authorities and factory owners are eyeing the networks warily. Sites dedicated to grievances have been shut down, and stories about worker rallies are regularly deleted, according to labor advocates. The QQ forums are capped at 100 users, making mass mobilization more difficult.

Still, the potential remains for groups to organize through social networking.

Authorities alleged that exiled separatists used the Internet to urge ethnic Uighurs to riot in China's western Xinjiang province in July; the government cut Web access in the region for days.

"Nobody can predict when the Chinese working class will have uproar. It may be once in a lifetime, but if it happens, it will change everything," said Jack Qiu, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who follows the Internet in China.

Until a few years ago, factory workers missed out on the Internet boom. But that changed with the explosion of Internet cafes and cheap cellphones that enabled users to go online.

Unlike Facebook or Twitter, which have been blocked by censors in China, the worker sites use Chinese interfaces.

The allure of these communication tools is apparent on the outskirts of Shenzhen. Beyond the gates of one of the world's largest electronics factories, operated by Foxconn Technology Group, are countless cellphone stores. Meanwhile, on the ground floors of densely packed apartment buildings, are Internet bars where off-duty workers wearing headsets pound away at keyboards for about 40 cents an hour.

In Longhua, just north of Shenzhen's city center and minutes from Hong Kong, the Foxconn workers are easily identified by their polo shirts and company badges. College educated, they work in offices or have skilled assembly line jobs, either way with long hours and lackluster pay.

Zeng Zhaolue used to work for Foxconn until he quit a year ago to open a bar near the factory. Four years ago, he established www.foxlife.cn, a bulletin board frequented by about 65,000 Foxconn employees. The site offers snapshots into the daily lives of Foxconn workers and includes lists of unreported accidents.

When 25-year-old migrant Sun Danyong jumped off his apartment building this summer after being accused of losing a top-secret prototype of Apple Inc.'s next-generation iPhone, Foxconn factory employees logged on to Foxlife for news days before Sun's death was publicly reported. (Foxconn manufactures Apple products.)

Foxconn did not respond to requests for an interview.

Another site, www.zggr.cn, uses an acronym for "Chinese worker." It aggregates news stories about worker strife, with more than 1,000 news posts added monthly, mostly sent in by employees of state-owned factories whose lives have been upended by the march toward privatization.

"Mainstream [Chinese] media can't publish these stories, and many Web portals delete them," said Yan Yuanzhang, the site's founder.

Yan straddles a fine line. Three years ago, he had similar websites that were shut down by officials. He said his forum must appear dedicated to "research" to skirt the censors.

At the same time, Yan said, he was never told to remove user comments about an executive beaten to death by workers at Tonghua Iron & Steel Group in northern China this summer. The workers were protesting the sale of their mill to a private company. The postings, in essence, said the boss had it coming.

The only explanation Yan could surmise was that officials couldn't block everything and that letting workers blow off steam on the Internet was preferable to having them demonstrate on the streets.

As for the Tonghua steel factory? Officials reversed course and blocked the sale.