The trial also highlighted differences in the way Chinese use different social networks. Details on the trial were tweeted live to a Weibo account belonging to the Jinan Intermediary Court, and everyone from citizen journalists to celebrities tweeted their opinions as the trial progressed.
On Weixin, which has nearly 400 million users, and is more similar to Facebook in that posts are only visible to approved "friends", users are exploiting the service for more intimate social events like weddings, and professionals use them to deal with their clients.
In short, despite being easier to censor, Chinese netizens are still using Weibo to voice their opinions to a large, anonymous group of followers, and take part in discussions. Censorship is perhaps perceived as a necessary evil on the platform, and analysis has shown that 40% of the accounts opened are dormant.
Weixin, on the other hand is more difficult to censor, but easier and faster for Chinese people to send short messages through because the voice recording function mitigates the use of Pinyin input. Messages are sent faster and more easily, but to a limited crowd, new legislation passed also increases the ability of authorities to crack down on anything that's deemed a rumor.
To get an idea of what's happening in the Chinese blogosphere, one turns to Weibo, but to do business and forge more personal relationships, Weixin in the app of choice.
Related articles
No comments:
Post a Comment