The Chinese government clearly does pay attention to public opinion expressed on the Internet - the extent to which they choose to adapt their practices based on it, or ignore it, seems to vary.
I haven't heard of any cases of anti-American blog posts being censored or bloggers encountering consequences for anti-American speech on the web in China.
I never thought to look at the New York Times one, even though I knew people were pissed off. I've seen YouTube videos from people who are pissed off at me about that and that takes a lot of effort to go find.
I think there is a big group of people out there who disagree about what is going on. They want to have their privacy back, they want to have internet freedom.
Every year in China, Internet executives are officially rewarded for their 'patriotism.'
North Korea aside, most authoritarian governments have already accepted the growth of the Internet culture as inevitable; they have little choice but to find ways to shape it in accord with their own narratives - or risk having their narratives shaped by others.
I study how governments seek to stifle and control online dissent.
The Egyptian experience suggests that social media can greatly accelerate the death of already dying authoritarian regimes.
