From porn surfer to freedom fighter: How Zhang Kun became a democracy activist

Like most young people today, Zhang Kun has spent a lot of time hanging out at internet cafes. The 26-year-old from Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, liked watching online porn as a teen, until one day he stumbled on a video link that prompted him to search for the truth, and eventually transformed him into a campaigner for civil society.

When I was about 14, broadband internet began to get a foothold in China, which gave rise to internet cafes. Unlike many teenagers my age, who frequented internet cafes to play online games, I was instead curious about pornography, perhaps because I had a bit of a rebellious streak at the time. The internet was rife with adult content back then, and I often went to internet cafes to browse forums on such things as Japanese adult videos. That was how we teens had our fun at the time. But one day I came across a video that had a profound effect on me. The video was about the crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989. I was so shocked that I burst into tears. I didn't know much about the concept of democracy, but I was touched by what the students and other protesters had done, for a good cause. And I believe that whoever ordered the crackdown by the People's Liberation Army were heartless.

Not until that day. Actually, many of my peers are still unaware of it to this day. I had doubts about what was on the video, so I reached out online to people in Taiwan and Hong Kong to verify what was shown on the film. The more feedback I got, the more I believed it had happened. However, I also learnt that many internet users had been detained for accessing materials linked to the crackdown. When you tried to raise the issue with classmates or friends, their first reaction was that they didn't want to discuss it - and some simply reported you to the police. That was exactly what people usually did in the rural community of Xuzhou where I was raised, and you couldn't change that much.

I didn't do much until I finished high school several years later, when social media such as microblogs gained popularity. Thanks to microblogging sites, I suddenly realised there were many like-minded people out there that shared my values and beliefs. It was quite empowering, and I no longer felt like an alien. I began to interact intensively with others via social media sites, which made me a kind of celebrity. My first microblog account attracted more than 20,000 followers before it was closed by censors in 2012. My latest one, with more than 30,000 followers, was again closed by authorities late last year over candid discussions of democracy and civil society.