Xiao Qiang (Chinese: 萧强; pinyin: Xīao Qíang) is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of China Digital Times, a bi-lingual China news website. He is an adjunct professor at the School of Information (2012–present) and the Graduate School of Journalism (2003 - 2011), University of California at Berkeley. He is also the Principal Investigator of the Counter-Power Lab, an interdisciplinary faculty-student research group focusing on the intersection of digital media, Internet Freedom and cyberactivism, based in the School of Information, UC Berkeley.
Xiao teaches classes Digital Activism and Blogging China at both the School of Information and the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California at Berkeley. In Fall 2003, Xiao launched China Digital Times to explore how to apply cutting edge technologies to aggregate, organize, and recommend online information from and about China. In 2006, Xiao helped initiate and facilitate the Open Net Consensus forum - which started the process of developing global principles on freedom of expression and privacy and included Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and other global internet companies, as well as several universities and human rights and civil rights organizations and investors. This process led to the launch of the Global Network Initiative in October 2008.
Xiao's current research focuses on measuring the state censorship and control of the Internet, mapping online political discourse and building an automated aggregator of the marginalized, censored or blocked content in Chinese blogosphere. The Counter-Power Lab also conducts research and development of innovative technologies which can break through such censorship.
A theoretical physicist by training, Xiao Qiang studied at the University of Science and Technology of China and entered the PhD program (1986–1989) in Astrophysics at the University of Notre Dame. He became a full-time human rights activist after the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989. Xiao was the Executive Director of the New York-based NGO Human Rights in China from 1991 to 2002 and vice-chairman of the steering committee of the World Movement for Democracy.
Xiao is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship in 2001, and is profiled in the book Soul Purpose: 40 People Who Are Changing the World for the Better, (Melcher Media, 2003). He was also a visiting fellow of the Santa Fe Institute in Spring, 2002.