More than 300m people in China are now signed up to Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter, and the service is heralding a new wave of self expression.
The service is helping groups to form and civil society to flourish. It is also heralding a new wave of self expression in a society where self expression, at least in public, has traditionally been dangerous and unusual.
Duncan Hewitt travelled around China to meet the people using social media.
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