When the invite-only app Clubhouse was launched last April, it was envisaged as the online equivalent of Soho House: an exclusive space where the well-connected could gather.
But for a few days, it became something else: a tiny gap in Beijing’s “great firewall”, allowing millions in China a glimpse of an unfiltered, uncensored internet. A place where people could openly discuss issues like the treatment of the Uighur minority, the crackdown in Hong Kong, and relations with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a breakaway province.
