Wikipedia

Microblogging in China

(Redirected from List of China-based microblogging services)

Weibo (Chinese: 微博; pinyin: wēi bó) is a general term for microblogging, but normally understood as Chinese-based mini-blogging services, including social chat sites and platform sharing.

Weibo
Chinese微博
Literal meaningMicroblog(ging)
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinWēibó
Bopomofoㄨㄟ˙ㄅㄛ˙
Wade–GilesWei-Po
Tongyong PinyinWēibó
IPA[wéɪ pwǒ]
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationMèih Bok
JyutpingMei4 Bok3
IPA[mej˩ pɔk̚˧]
Full name
Chinese微博客 or 微型博客
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinWēi bókè or Wēixíng bókè
IPA[wéɪ pwǒ kʰɤ̂] or [wéɪ ɕǐŋ pwǒ kʰɤ̂]
Yue: Cantonese
IPA[mej˩ pɔk̚˧.hak̚˧] or [mej˩ jɪŋ˩.pɔk̚˧.hak̚˧]

Weibo services make it possible for internet users to set up real-time information sharing communities individually, and upload and update information. Weibo services use a format similar to the American-based Twitter-service, but are used almost exclusively by Chinese language speakers. The format of specific features is not exactly identical, such as, for example, hashtags on Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, which both employ a double-hashtag "#HashName#" method, since the lack of spacing between Chinese characters necessitates a closing tag.[citation needed][1] A major difference – also in this digital arena – is that characters in idiom-based scripts, such as Chinese and Japanese can use fewer characters to convey information, as, for example witnessed by the 280 (formerly 140) characters limit that is in use on Twitter.[2][3] In 2016 the 140 character block limit was lifted by Sina Weibo.[4] Sina Weibo is the most visited such site in China. Sina has used the domain name weibo.com for the service since April 2011. Because of the site's popularity and domain name, the term Weibo is often used generically to refer to Sina Weibo or Tencent Weibo.

Weibos are a major source of commentary on a wide range of topics. After the high-speed Wenzhou train collision in 2011 in which 40 people died, online posting played a key role in spreading the news quickly and discussing and evaluating government response.[5]

In 2012, there were 309 million people microblogging in China.[6]

Term

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Microblogging panel, Chinese Blogger conference 2007

Wei boke (微博客) and weixing boke (微型博客), commonly abbreviated as weibo (微博), are Chinese words for "microblog". A China-based microblogging service often names itself a weibo by putting it after the name of the service (e.g. Tencent Weibo, Sina Weibo). A similar word "围脖" (pinyin: Wéibó; lit. 'scarf around the neck') is used as Internet slang for "weibo".[citation needed]

History

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Fanfou is the earliest notable weibo service. It was launched in Beijing on May 12, 2007 by the co-founder of Xiaonei (now Renren) Wang Xing. The website's layout, API, and mode of use was highly similar to Twitter, which was created earlier in 2006. Fanfou's users increased from 0.3 million to 1 million in the first half of 2009. The users included HP China, the Southern Weekly, artist Ai Weiwei, writer Lian Yue (连岳) and TV commentator Liang Wendao (梁文道).[7]

Some other weibo services, such as Jiwai, Digu, Zuosa and Tencent's Taotao were launched in 2006-2009.[8]

After the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, the CPC government shut down most of the domestic weibo services, including Fanfou and Jiwai. Many popular non China-based microblogging services such as Twitter, Facebook and Plurk have been blocked since then. Sina.com's CEO Charles Chao considered it to be an opportunity.[9][10]

Sina launched Sina Weibo on August 14, 2009. Its executives invited and persuaded many Chinese celebrities to join the service, which led to strong growth in user numbers.[9][10]

Two other Chinese Internet portals, Sohu and NetEase, launched the beta versions of their weibo sites almost simultaneously, on January 20, 2010. On January 30, another Internet portal Tencent closed its weibo service, Taotao, and started its new weibo service Tencent Weibo on March 5, 2010. Building on the large number of its instant messaging service QQ's users, Tencent Weibo later attracted more registered users than Sohu Weibo and NetEase Weibo.[8] The public beta versions of NetEase Weibo and Sohu Weibo were launched on March 20 and April 7, 2010, respectively.[11][12]

All these weibos, provided by the Chinese Internet giants, used the subdomain "t.example.com", such as t.sina.com.cn for Sina Weibo, t.qq.com for Tencent Weibo, t.sohu.com for Sohu Weibo, t.163.com for NetEase Weibo. On 7 April 2011, the leader of the weibo services Sina Weibo started to use an independent domain name weibo.com acquired earlier, in an attempt to build up its own brand.[citation needed]

Sohu Weibo and NetEase Weibo were suspended between July 9–12 and July 13–15, 2010, respectively.[13] Since then, all of the Chinese weibo services have attached a note of "beta version" to their title logos. Commentators said that Sohu Weibo and NetEase Weibo were being "reorganized" by Chinese administrators. The weibo services were not officially approved, so they could only be operated as a "beta version".[14]

Some closed weibos were re-opened under restrictions in 2009 or 2010, including Fanfou, which was re-launched in November 2010. Most of Fanfou's users never came back.[citation needed]

Users

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Before July 2009, Fanfou was the most influential weibo website. In February 2011, Tencent announced that its weibo registrations had exceeded 100 million.[8] This threshold was officially passed by Sina Weibo in March 2011.[15] However, according to iResearch's report on March 30, 2011, Sina Weibo took a commanding lead over its competitors, with 56.5% of China's microblogging market based on active users, and 86.6% based on browsing time.[16]

According to the China Internet Network Information Center, in the first half of 2011, Chinese weibo users increased from 63.11 million to 195 million. By July 2011, 40.2% Chinese Internet users and 34.0% Chinese mobile Internet users used weibo/microblogs. In Dec 2010, it had been, respectively, 13.8% and 15.5%.[17][Note 1]

Quite a number of studies revealed that the active microblog users are government departments in China. For example, the top 5 Weibo microbloggers on the topic construction safety were government departments.[18] The People's Liberation Army makes extensive use of weibo for psychological warfare, public opinion warfare, and United Front activities related to Taiwan.[19]

Censorship and free speech

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In July 2009, Chinese microblogs were severely curtailed when most of the domestic weibo services such as Fanfou were shut down. But it brought the birth of others, such as Tencent Weibo and Sina Weibo, operated by large Chinese Internet companies.[9][10] Sohu Weibo and NetEase Weibo were suspended in July 2010 under the order of the Chinese administrators.[13] Weibo is now operated as a "beta version", enabling the user to circumvent prohibition.[14]

Due to the Internet censorship in China, all of the China-based weibo services are now controlled by various self-censorship policies and methods.[20][21] They usually have an automatically checked list of blacklisted keywords.[22] Sometimes administrators monitor these manually. Posts on topics which are sensitive and forbidden in China (e.g. Human Rights, Liu Xiaobo) are deleted, and the user's account may be blocked.[23][24]

From 29 July 2020, Cyberspace Administration will carry out a three-month special censorship action to We-Media in China. One topic of the action is distributing We-Media accounts, which are on 13 major platforms including WeChat and Weibo, into different classes and categories. The action aims to stop We-Media's spreading false information, incorrectly discussing the history of CPC and China, promoting wrong perspective of values, malicious marketing and extortion.[25]

Some scandals and controversies such as the Li Gang incident, were uncovered by weibo.[8] After incidents such as the Wenzhou train collision and the 2010 Shanghai fire, criticism of the CPC government increased on weibo.[26]

Although weibo services have not always met the approval of the government, many Chinese officials have opened weibo accounts.[27] The official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Daily, also launched its own People's Weibo (人民微博) in February 2010, with some governmental organizations and officials blogging on it.[citation needed]

Recent studies have shown that official microblogging has become a sophisticated e-government effort for social management, especially for local governments and state units. It has led to a gradual change in local government's social governance strategy and functional change from being a service provider to a 'service predictor'. The latter requires enhanced capabilities to deliver individualized services and institute state surveillance via commercial service providers. In doing so, government units are experimenting with ways of interaction and negotiation with the microblogging public and service providers in their attempt to improve social management and political legitimacy. This negotiation process also exposes and/or creates inter-governmental tensions, since local governments in China consist of distinct units with their own particular preferences and operation procedures.[28]

The 2016 decision in the South China Sea arbitration resulted in a large-scale outpouring of criticism from Chinese internet users.[29]: 126  From 1 July to 20 July 2016, over five million microblogs directly addressed the decision.[29]: 126  It was one of the most discussed topics online in China during this period.[29]: 126 

The "Real Name" policy

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Since 2011, there have been rumors that the government will institute a "Real Name" policy for Weibo users. Early in February 2012, China's four key weibo companies – Sina, Sohu, NetEase and Tencent – announced that March 16, 2012, was the deadline for users to adopt their real name identity.[30]

The "Real Name" policy requires all users on Chinese weibos to register with the name on their government issued ID card.[citation needed] However, the username that shows on their homepage doesn't have to be their real legal name. The Real Name Policy would assist the government in controlling speech and communication on the Internet, and would facilitate Internet censorship.[citation needed]

Although the regulation was supposed to take effect on March 16, 2012, the policy was not implemented. Many weibo users complained about this policy, and Sina Weibo started to censor posts that contain the phrase "real name registration" or any related terms on its services from March 19, 2012.[31]

A "Big V" is a microblogger with a substantial following and a verified account such as Kong Qingdong.[32]

Relevant policies

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(directly translated from the official regulation)

Alphabetical list of notable China-based microblogging/weibo services

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Chinese microbloggers on Twitter

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Ai Wei-wei, a well-known Chinese artist and activist, who has been arrested and controlled by the Chinese government, is one of the most active Chinese microbloggers on Twitter.[citation needed]

Due to the strict Internet censorship policy on microblogging enacted by the CPC government, a number of Chinese microbloggers choose to make posts that contain "sensitive contents" on Twitter. Although Twitter has been blocked in China since 2009,[33] most Twitter users who reside in China can access the Twitter website using a proxy. More information can be found on List of websites blocked in China.

Twitter users include Chinese nationals, who participated in, or led, the Chinese democracy movement that took place on June 4, 1989, such as Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner [34] and a political prisoner in China.[35]

Weibo's most significant competition is rival microblogging service, WeChat, as of 2014 the country's leading messaging application.[36]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ The statistical data may or may not include the mainland Chinese users that bypass the Great Firewall to use blocked microblogging services outside China.

References

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  1. ^ "Comments by Cedric Sam". The Economist. 2011-09-30. Archived from the original on 2011-10-08. Retrieved 2013-05-03.
  2. ^ Rosen, Aliza; Ihara, Ikuhiro (26 September 2017). "Giving you more characters to express yourself". blog.twitter.com. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  3. ^ N.T, Ling. A comparison between English and Chinese (PDF). NTU. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 March 2013. Retrieved 13 May 2016.
  4. ^ Claire Groden (January 21, 2016), "China's Weibo Beats Twitter to Lifting Character Limit", Tech, Fortune, archived from the original on 6 June 2019, retrieved 25 May 2020
  5. ^ Wines, Michael; Lafraniere, Sharon (28 July 2011). "In Baring Train Crash Facts, Blogs Erode China Censorship". The New York Times.
  6. ^ "China's Internet users reach 564 mln". news.xinhuanet.com. 2013-01-15. Archived from the original on March 4, 2013. Retrieved 2013-01-15.
  7. ^ "Twitter时代：人人都可发新闻". 田志凌 (in Chinese). Southern Metropolis Daily. July 12, 2009. Archived from the original on 16 September 2009. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  8. ^ a b c d "Special: Micro blog's macro impact". Michelle and Uking. China Daily. March 2, 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  9. ^ a b c "Charles Chao – The 2011 TIME 100". Austin Ramzy. TIME. April 21, 2011. Archived from the original on April 24, 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  10. ^ a b c "Sina Weibo". Gady Epstein. Forbes Asia Magazine. March 14, 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  11. ^ 网易微博公测上线 更开放更去中心化 (in Chinese). NetEase Tech. March 20, 2010. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  12. ^ 搜狐微博上线 (in Chinese). cnBeta. 7 April 2010. Archived from the original on 7 November 2018. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  13. ^ a b 网易微博也开始"维护" 各网站推出"测试版". 谭人玮 (in Chinese). Southern Metropolis Daily. July 14, 2010. Archived from the original on 10 August 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  14. ^ a b 网易微博突然关闭 各大微博齐变"测试版" (in Chinese). 成都商报, ifeng. July 15, 2010. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  15. ^ 新浪发布2010年四季及全年财报 微博用户数过亿 (in Chinese). Sina Tech. March 2, 2011. Archived from the original on 5 March 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  16. ^ "Sina Commands 56% of China's Microblog Market". Kyle. iResearch. March 30, 2011. Archived from the original on 14 August 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  17. ^ "第28次中国互联网络发展状况统计报告" (PDF). China Internet Network Information Center. July 2011. Retrieved 27 October 2011.
  18. ^ Zeng, Liyun; Li, Rita Yi Man (1 August 2022). "Construction safety and health hazard awareness in Web of Science and Weibo between 1991 and 2021". Safety Science. 152: 105790. doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2022.105790. S2CID 248289441.
  19. ^ Lee, Kuan-chen. "The Logic of PLA's Muscle-Flexing on Social Media: Observations on the Official Sina Weibo Account of the PLA Eastern Theater Command" (PDF). indsr.org.tw. INDSR. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  20. ^ "China's Sina to step-up censorship of Weibo". Reuters. Sep 19, 2011. Archived from the original on October 18, 2017. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  21. ^ "Beijing's Weibo Conundrum". The Wall Street Journal. Sep 21, 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  22. ^ "新浪微博搜索禁词". China Digital Times. 7 July 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  23. ^ "Radiohead enters censored world of Chinese social media". Global Post. July 3, 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  24. ^ "著名艺术家艾未未挑战新浪微博的网络审查". Boxun.com. 10 March 2010. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  25. ^ Yu, Junjie (29 July 2020). "To safeguard national security, it is time for China to build up nuclear deterrent". Xinhua News. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
  26. ^ The Wenzhou Crash and the Future of Weibo Archived 2012-01-06 at the Wayback Machine, Penn Olson – The Asian Tech Catalog, August 1, 2011
  27. ^ "Weibo Microblogs – A Western format with new Chinese implications". Thinking Chinese. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  28. ^ Schlæger, Jesper; Jiang, Min (July 2014). "Official microblogging and social management by local governments in China". China Information. 28 (2): 189–213. doi:10.1177/0920203X14533901.
  29. ^ a b c Wang, Frances Yaping (2024). The Art of State Persuasion: China's Strategic Use of Media in Interstate Disputes. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197757512.
  30. ^ Ide, William (2012). "Confusion Follows China 'Real Name' Policy Deadline for Microblogs". Retrieved 2020-01-30.
  31. ^ Millward, Steven (2012). "'Real name' registration in China: A bad joke that turned into a farce". Archived from the original on 2012-03-22. Retrieved 2012-03-26.
  32. ^ Patrick Boehler (February 27, 2015). "Beijing Courts Address the Right to Criticize Public Figures" (Sinosphere blog). The New York Times. Retrieved February 28, 2015. a so-called Big V, a term used to describe widely followed microbloggers with verified accounts
  33. ^ Branigan, Tania (2009). "China blocks Twitter, Flickr and Hotmail ahead of Tiananmen anniversary". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2012-03-26.
  34. ^ "The Nobel Peace Prize 2010". Nobelprize.org. 29 Mar 2012 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2010/
  35. ^ Times, China Digital (March 3, 2012). ""Signing 08 Charter (the document for which Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 10 years in jail)". – also at China Digital Tumblr ]
  36. ^ "Tencent's WeChat Takes Bite Out of Weibo, Sina Says". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2014-05-08.
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