Chinese Social Media and Protest Dynamics Dataset (2009–2017)

Sina Weibo

2024/08/14

This dataset accompanies the Econometrica article by Bei Qin, David Strömberg, and Yanhui Wu (2024), which analyzes the role of social media in shaping protest and strike dynamics across China from 2009 to 2017. It includes data on 13.2 billion Weibo (microblog) posts—tweets and retweets—used to measure social media communication across Chinese cities. The study exploits the staggered rollout of Weibo access to identify the causal impact of digital communication on the geographical spread, diversification, and escalation of protests. The dataset provides the foundation for modeling protest wave propagation and network-based diffusion of social action in tightly monitored environments.