For Ai, the question was an important one, as he sees Twitter as an essential tool for circumnavigating government oversight of communications; For Dorsey it is a loaded question, especially now that Google is considering its search service out of the country due to Chinese government's demands for the company to censor its search results.

Ai said that the influence of Twitter in China is already great, even though it is blocked for the entire country, with the exception of 50,000 participants.

"In China, we cannot see YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter, and very soon, maybe not see Google," Ai said. "Basically it is society that forbids any flow of information and freedom of speech."

There are ways around the Chinese government's so-called , but they take a fair amount of work, Ai said. Users must sign up for the service using another language.

For China, tweeting can be a rich form of communication. "At 140 words, in Chinese, you can really write a novel. You can discuss most profound ideas really to democracy, freedom, poetry," Ai said.