Week 11: Great Firewall of China
Firstly, lets talk about social media in China where it does not have apps like other countries as an example Facebook is not used in China but then instead, another app in China was created as a substitute for users there as an example of Instagram which is called Sina’s Weibo which is the closest in some key ways. Moreover, through this app also the people in China they treat it as ‘China’s Twitter but the which is much more functional than the standard Twitter, in the concept of making this app equivalent to Facebook instead.
However, there are more apps made by American company such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and more because of the firewall made by China to block the unmade apps in China because of certain circumstances which are can’t be avoided. Why this happens is because China is a developed country where there are policies that have been made by the country (Alexa, 2019). Besides that, the censorship in China through the “Great Firewall” web filter because of the users are made to use applications that are Chinese at the same time not knowing what is happening in other country’s updates especially now knowing how to actually communicate in English to grow. In accommodating to 1.35 billion of people in China where the apps developed in China is used by all social media users to communicate with each other especially in business where WeChat is important for business users where there are over 1 billion monthly active users (DeGennaro, 2019).
In the recent happening where U.S Companies begins to cut off China which made China create the firewall app to block apps from the U.S because of the decision said by Trump himself were to also block of accepting products and services from China. Moreover, since Google is from the U.S where they started to restrict the future updates of its Android operating software. Some other manufacturers in the U.S also suspending dealings with the Chinese firm (Whalen, 2019)
On the other hand, VPNs in China is also banned because it might hard the academics, software developer and foreign business dealing between China. Although researchers are lack of adequate access to overseas journals at the same time communication between universities in China and other universities in other countries to gain access to information to be thought in the university (Haas, 2017). In banning VPN, which is to save censorship in China especially during a high-level government meeting in Beijing.
To finish off, this can be seen that China is a developed country that can make the people follow its footstep although not seeing the world happening outside but then being able to be a fast-developing country because of being itself as for their GDP was $7,594 in 2014.
References
China, K 2018, China social media landscape 2018, China Internet Watch, viewed 25 May 2019,<https://www.chinainternetwatch.com/26502/social-media-2018/>.
DeGennaro, T 2019, 10 most popular social media sites in china (2019 updated), Dragon Social, viewed 25 May 2019, <https://www.dragonsocial.net/blog/social-media-in-china/>.
Haas, B 2017, China moves to block internet vpns from 2018, The Guardian, viewed 25 May 2019,<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/11/china-moves-to-block-internet-vpns-from-2018>.
Lampton D M, 2019, Is china a developed country? CSIS, viewed 25 May 2019,<https://chinapower.csis.org/is-china-a-developed-country/>.
Roupen, R 2018, What is equivalent to Instagram in china, Quora, viewed 25 May 2019,<https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-equivalent-of-Instagram-in-China>.
Sweetman, M 2014, The importance of social media in china, South China Morning Post, viewed 25 May 2019, <https://www.scmp.com/article/1598699/importance-social-media-china>.
Whalen, J, et. al, Huawei supply band roils stocks as u.s. companies begin to cut off china tech giant, The Washing ton Post, viewed 25 May 2019,<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/20/google-cuts-off-huawei-after-trump-administration-crackdown/?utm_term=.0948700d89a9#>.
