MCLC: social media shift

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: social media shift
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (7/4/14):
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/05/world/asia/an-online-shift-in-china-muffl
es-an-open-forum.html

An Online Shift in China Muffles an Open Forum
By IAN JOHNSON

BEIJING — For the past few years, social media in China has been dominated
by the Twitter-like Sina Weibo, a microblogging service that created an
online sphere of freewheeling public debate, incubating social change and
at times even holding politicians accountable in a country where
traditional media outlets are severely constrained.

But in recent months, Weibo has been eclipsed by the Facebook-like WeChat,
which allows instant messaging within self-selected circles of followers.

The shift from public to semiprivate communication, accelerated by a
government crackdown on Weibo, has fundamentally reordered the social
media landscape for the country’s 600 million Internet users, curbing what
had been modern China’s most open public forum.

“This is a new phase for social media in China,” said Hu Yong, a
journalism professor at Peking University. “It is the decline of the first
large-scale forum for information in China and the rise of something more
narrowly focused.”

WeChat has its advantages and its defenders. It is less censored than
Weibo, and some users say it allows them to speak more freely, knowing
that their conversations are private. Many users relish its added
functions, including voice messaging.

In May, though, the government announced
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-05/28/c_133366229.htm> that
WeChat would be more heavily monitored. Saying that instant messaging
services were being used to spread “violence, terrorism and pornography,”
the agency charged with policing the Internet said it would “firmly fight
infiltration from hostile forces at home and abroad,” according to a
government statement.

In its heyday, Weibo promised much more. It came to prominence in 2011
after a high-speed rail crash killed 40 people. Weibo users detailed the
mayhem and government shortcomings that led to the accident. It was a
signal moment in the Internet’s coming of age in China, a reminder of how
the medium could challenge even a formidable authoritarian government.

Weibo is still important. Boundary-pushing news and commentaries are still
more easily found there than in the more tightly controlled world of
government newspapers and magazines. It also remains popular for following
celebrities and gossip. It reported in March that it had 66 million daily
users, up 37 percent over a year earlier.

But government figures
<http://www.cnnic.net.cn/hlwfzyj/hlwxzbg/hlwtjbg/201403/t20140305_46240.htm
 show that the overall number of microblog users, including those using
Weibo and services from other providers, fell by 9 percent last year, many
migrating to WeChat. That shift, along with a general decline in
technology stocks, contributed to a disappointing New York stockmarket
listing in April for We ibo, which raised $286 million instead ofthe
anticipated $500 million.

 
“It’s far from what it used to be,” said He Weifang, a prominent lawyer
and onetime heavy blogger on Weibo with more than a million followers.
“You can still find facts on Weibo, or news reports, but the comments
aren’t as interesting or deep.”

One reason is the government crackdown on the so-called Big V accounts —
prominent commenters, with verified accounts, who often had millions of
followers. After hundreds were detained, most stopped posting on Weibo.

Others quit because of the sharp tone of commentary on Weibo, which often
devolved into nasty, ad hominem attacks. Some grew tired of the dizzying
list of banned terms and the cat-and-mouse games with censors to evade
them. For example, “June 4,” the date of the 1989 Tiananmen Square
crackdown, was banned, so creative minds came up with “May 35” (which
would work out to June 4), until that was also banned. Such wordplay
amused hard-core users but confused ordinary readers.

WeChat seized on the frustration. Its parent company, Tencent, claims 355
million active monthly users. The company does not make public the number
of daily users, making a direct comparison to Weibo difficult. But few
people disagree that WeChat is now more popular.

“June 4” is banned on WeChat too, but other terms routinely blocked on
microblogs, such as the name of the former security czar Zhou Yongkang,
are allowed. Most observers ascribe this leniency to the fact that WeChat
messages have a limited readership.

More important, activists say, WeChat allows them to dig deeper into
issues with like-minded people. The veteran environmentalist Li Bo has
used WeChat for more than two years to rally opposition to damaging
infrastructure projects, such as a controversial plan to dam the Nu River.

Mr. Li is a participant in one WeChat group called Environmental Policy
Advocacy that has more than 300 members, including, he said, open-minded
government officials. Although officials rarely participate, they see the
traffic and occasionally invite members to their offices to chat about
policies.

Some groups are smaller and narrower, such as one focused on a county in
eastern China damaged by pollution. Others are task-specific, such as
small committees for various campaigns and projects.

These groups can be powerful as long as they are not too overtly
political. In late April, factory workers used WeChat to organize strikes
against a Taiwanese company that had failed to pay into a retirement fund.
Around the same time, however, churchgoers trying to use WeChat to prevent
their church from being torn down found that their WeChat circles were
being used to track down opponents of the government’s action.

A broader problem for activists, however, is that WeChat can become an
echo chamber.

When a charity for coal miners was trying to raise $500 this year to buy
oxygen pumps for a miner dying of black lung disease, its initial appeal
fell flat. On a hunch, an employee, Xue Yinhu, appealed to followers on
WeChat and raised the money in an hour.

“These people know you better, so they’re more willing to support you,” he
said. “But sometimes you’re talking only to the same people.”

WeChat also has built-in constraints that hobble its ability to replicate
Weibo’s public sphere. WeChat allows the creation of public accounts that
anyone can follow, but limits posts to one a day. In addition, access to
public accounts is not possible on cellphones, making it more difficult,
for instance, to launch an incriminating photo of a public official into
the blogosphere.

Comments are also deleted after a few days, making long-term discussions
challenging and erasing a historical record. The government also monitors
these accounts and recently deleted some covering social news and politics.

Tencent declined to comment on how it decided which functions to offer
users.

Still, WeChat remains a powerful tool for activists, even if Weibo’s
promise of an open online society has been frustrated.
Hu Jia, who has worked on environmental and public health causes for 15
years, said that the advent of social media, despite its limitations, had
produced a better-informed society.

“Weibo and WeChat are gifts from God,” he said. “Despite all the
government surveillance, the benefits we get are even greater for people
trying to organize society.”

Correction: July 5, 2014
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the resignation
of a railway minister. He was removed from his post before the 2011 train
crash. He did not resign because of criticism over the crash.

Amy Qin contributed research.