Resistance and Digital Communication: How Gaming Platforms Become Alternative Infrastructures of Communication in Surveillance States

Abstract

This article examines the transformative potential of online gaming platforms, particularly PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), as unconventional yet vital channels of communication among Uyghurs living in exile and those in East Turkestan, a region subject to intense Chinese state surveillance. In contexts where traditional modes of interaction are suppressed by authoritarian control, Uyghur individuals have creatively repurposed digital games not just for entertainment but as fragile tools of reconnection and resistance. Through interviews with young Uyghur women in Türkiye and close analysis of their in-game experiences, the study explores how PUBG became a temporary lifeline for communication, how speech was adapted under the threat of surveillance, and how such platforms were eventually compromised by state interference. By centering the voices of those navigating life between repression and exile, the article reveals the quiet ingenuity of digital resistance and challenges conventional assumptions about the political potential of play.