Chinese internet users defied government censors yesterday with emotional tributes to Google after the US company threatened to pull out of China if Beijing continued to demand it censor its local internet operations.
Several people laid flowers and wreaths outside Google's offices in the Zhong guan cun high-tech district in Beijing. When security guards called the move “illegal”, the phrase “illegal flower donation” became an target for online mockery.
Google's statement won backing from the Obama administration, while rival US tech companies immediately distanced themselves from their competitor's threat to close its operations in China.