Subversive Amplification in China: How Weibo Users Turned Propaganda into Mass Dissent After the 2022 Ürümqi Fire

Intensified information control severely constrains digital contention in China, yet online mass events occasionally occur. This study analyses 274,721 Weibo messages following the 2022 Ürümqi residential building fire, which precipitated the White Paper protests, to examine how mobilization, coordination, and grievance articulation operate under tight information control. It argues that ordinary users were activated not by opinion leaders, but by official communication failures that transformed latent grievances into outrage while providing focal points for dissent. Users converged on these focal points by hijacking state-promoted content. In a process this study terms “subversive amplification,” their aggregate engagement amplified the hashtags' visibility and the critical payloads attached to them. However, because subversive amplification bypasses opinion leaders, contention manifested as a fragmented menu of grievances rather than a coordinated demand. The case reveals how state dominance of the online attention infrastructure creates episodic vulnerabilities, but not in ways that facilitate unified frames.