About us
Inspired by the recently incorporated ‘Community Notes’ feature on X (formerly Twitter), The Drum Tower seeks to bring forward important context and background information to social media content in China. By doing so, we seek to counter the longstanding proliferation of misinformation on China on social media, for the sake of sensationalism, demonization, or just pure clout-chasing. In a time when tensions between China and the West are as tight as ever, we believe it is ever important to see China through a value-free lens with as little manipulation as possible.
The name of this project is inspired by the founder’s favorite place, the Drum Tower or gulou (鼓楼) in Chinese. Situated in Beijing and built in 1272, the Drum Tower originally served a musical purpose, before being transformed into a time-keeping structure by the government. A panoramic view of Beijing City can be observed at the top of the tower. As such, the Drum Tower serves as a metaphor for the objectives of this project: to observe, keep track of, and oversee social media content about China.