MCLC: criticism on social media (1)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Jonathan Benney <arijdb at nus.edu.sg>
Subject: criticism on social media (1)
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Just offering a few brief comments (not to be read as a blanket criticism
of the article, which is interesting):

1. I wonder how the authors would interpret the points-based censorship
system implemented on Weibo. (It seems to me that it is most likely a
strategy designed to target, intimidate and censor individuals, rather
than merely stifling collective action.)

2. The emphasis on the censorship of pornography is also interesting.
Other list members may be more knowledgeable about this. But first, it
seems to me that previous Chinese anti-"spiritual pollution" movements
(saohuang) have been broad moral campaigns under which many perceived
social evils other than just pornography have been attacked. Second, I'm
curious to know how much genuinely pornographic material appears on social
media per se. Weibo, Renren, and so on do not seem like natural sources of
pornography (compared to torrent sites, specialist websites, and so on).
Last, it also strikes me that opposing pornography (which is publicly
perceived as a "bad thing", and which few people will openly admit to
consuming, in the West and elsewhere) is one means by which the
party-state can create public support and a sense of moral resilience
about their censorship.

3. The article's conflation of various forms of "social media" obscures a
number of issues, in particular the different styles of discourse which go
on on different forms of site (BBSs like Tianya and microblogs like Weibo
have very different writing styles, and I would suggest that this leads to
differences in conceptual emphasis), and the ways in which the state is
able to manipulate the structures of various forms of social media in
order to guide and censor discussion easily (for example, when Sina Weibo
adapted Twitter, a specialised comment function was introduced; on the
face of it, this seems like an added convenience for the user, but it also
allows the site administrators to remove the comment function entirely if
deemed necessary [eg, in March when Bo Xilai rumours were everywhere]).

4. It's fine to accept that there is a lot of easily accessible discourse
about in China which is critical of the state. This still leaves the
question of who is reading it and how they are interpreting it. There's a
lot of information about EVERYTHING on the Internet. It doesn't
automatically mean that it is all being read or acted on by masses of
people.

Jonathan Benney
National University of Singapore