3. Olympic Torch Relay Protests in San Francisco: 2008 in Review

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Olympic Torch in San Francisco

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Intended to be a global “Journey of Harmony”, the torch relay leading up to the Beijing Olympics was greeted by widespread protests in many of the cities through which it passed.

Activists were angry over a variety of political issues including China’s human rights record, unrest in Tibet and the status of Taiwan. The relay also attracted counter-protests from pro-China supporters.

San Francisco played host to the US leg of the relay on April 9th and thousands of pro- and anti-China protesters turned out along the planned route.

But it became a game of cat and mouse when officials diverted the torch and shifted the closing ceremony to the airport. Undeterred, people at the rally used a variety of social media tools to keep others updated on the torch’s progress.

Blogger Scott Beale of Laughing Squid used Twitter (as did others) to provide live updates from the scene as well as uploading photo and video of the events to Flickr and his blog. He also shared his photos with NowPublic, which carried a variety of images from other eyewitnesses.