Until a couple of weeks ago I thought that China's great firewall meant that the Chinese had essentially no access to social media whatsoever. But much to my surprise, they have by far the highest number of social media users in the world, with 596 million users in 2017 (Statista 2018). Obviously this would be massively impacted by the fact that they have the largest population in the world - but considering they don't use the social media we see as so widespread, such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, it seems like a lot to me.
As most, if not all of our well known social media sites are blocked in China, alternatives were created and quickly adopted (see image above). They have an equivalent to everything that we have, and use it religiously.
Unlike in Western culture, there has been a massive 'convergence of the offline and online worlds' (Crampton 2011), meaning that there is much less a separation between someone's social media and their self. Their social media is a massive part of what makes them who they are, and young people generally have more online friends than offline.
Just to show the level of convergence between online and offline life in China, WeChat (a messaging service similar to Facebook Messenger/WhatsApp) allows users to book doctors appointments and order goods and services. Interestingly, in China, you could walk into a restaurant and order and pay for your food all through WeChat, you could have no human contact at all. Western social media has not reached that level, and does not seem relatively close to it, so this is crazy to think that this has been China for the past few years.
Chinese social media is largely censored by the government, and it is extremely difficult for the Chinese Netizens to speak about politics at all online. So rather than this, users tell stories or speak about companies, with 55% of China's Netizens having initiated or participated in online discussion about companies (Crampton 2011). Purchase decisions are influenced more by social media than anywhere else in the world, and so it is highly important for companies to engage with Chinese audiences to profit off this fact.
As much as I would have thought China was behind with social media, they seem to be ahead of the game despite having the 'biggest digital boundary in the whole world' (Anti 2011). Chinese social media although seemingly restrictive to us, has enabled the Chinese citizens more freedom than they have ever had. Their public sphere is emerging and changing, and they are all clearly digital citizens. It will be interesting to see how it continues to develop and if censorship is lowered eventually, how this will impact both those within the wall and those outside of it.
References:
Anti, M 2011, 'Behind the great firewall of China', TedTalks, viewed 15 May 2018, < https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_anti_behind_the_great_firewall_of_china#t-481386>.
Crampton, T 2011 'Social media in China: The same, but different' China Business Review, Vol 38, Issue 1, pp 28-31.
Statista 2018, Number of social network users in selected countries in 2017 and 2022 (in millions), Statista, viewed on 29 May 2018, <https://www.statista.com/statistics/278341/number-of-social-network-users-in-selected-countries/#0>.
Image source: Suyin 2013, Baidu SEO and Internet in China, Blueprint, viewed on 29 May 2018, <https://blueprintdigital.com/baidu-seo/>.
In late 2012 China began enforcing a country wide firewall to block websites that the government did not condone. China’s communist state means that the image of their dictator is very important to them and something that they aim to protect at all costs, even through the ban of non governmentally approved social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter. “They want people to see the President as above them and that his power cannot be questioned” (McDonell 2017). It is for this reason that information sharing sites such as these, based on user posts are blocked since they have the potential to initiate free speech against their leader.
These strict regulations make it seem as though it would be difficult for advertisers to target audiences in China since they’d have to use non traditional social media marketing methods when trying to reach them. Although websites most commonly used in western regions of the world such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are not available in China, 95% of the population living within Tier 1/2/3 are registered on a social media site according to Silverman et al. in their article “China’s social media boom”. The study revealed that “in general, the Chinese populace is skeptical of information from news sources and advertising; people rely more on word-of-mouth from friends, family, and key opinion leaders, many of whom share information on social media”.
In addition to this, it was revealed that Chinese internet users actually spend more time online than their American and Japanese counterparts who are not under a firewall. Therefore, are we safe to assume that the firewall hasn’t as much impact as we here in the West assume?
Having gone through our teen years during the birth of social media, we saw the rise of social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and we grew with them. But for a community that never grew a dependency on these sites, it is no surprise that other social media sites became what they depend on in the absence of what had been blocked. It is clear that for the Chinese community, the firewall has not deterred them from the use of social media or communication and instead has allowed them different avenues for communication; Qzone, Weibo and Renren.
For an Australian visiting China, the firewall seems like a huge hinderance since our entire contact base is kept on Facebook. However, for the Chinese community who did not have this contact base to begin with, they have built it elsewhere. And their social media sites, while strictly monitored, are still thriving.
"The Great Firewall is closing in on China ’s Internet users" has been added to my site. Please visit for details. http://www.stocknewspaper.com/the-great-firewall-is-closing-in-on-china-s-internet-users/
China has the world’s highest number of internet users at 731mn
China has the world’s highest number of internet users at 731mn
The number of Internet users in China – already the world’s highest – reached 731 million in December, authorities said, as e-commerce drives consumer demand across the Asian giant.
Total Internet users rose 6.2 percent from the end of December 2015 and equals the entire population of Europe, the government-linked China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said in a statement Sunday on its…
What is the China firewall? For those that were still unaware, the Internet throughout China is censored. The China firewall is considered the most advanced
