Online protests aren’t always directed at the government. In 2007, a Starbucks store operating in the Forbidden City became the target of a Web campaign by Chinese who said they felt that it “trampled” on the country’s culture.
The outcry was launched by a blog post, penned by a Chinese state TV anchorman, in which he called for the store to be booted. The post went viral, and in the end, more than 500,000 Chinese signed an online petition against the Forbidden City location, according to the BBC. That Starbucks eventually closed its doors.
The campaign was an early example of the power that the Web held to effect change in China – at that time, mostly via blogs.
