Weibo brings change to China
BBC News, 31 July 2012
The breadth and nature of public debate in China has been drastically changed by the use of social media, but is it really just a poor replacement for real social change?
Beijing’s recent floods were quickly followed by the resignation of the city’s mayor.
The local government’s handling of the crisis had faced criticism on social media, and the incident is a reminder of just how the internet has changed China.
The main reason for this transformation is Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, which remains blocked in China.
The country’s biggest microblogging service, Sina Weibo, now has 300,000,000 registered users, and is growing fast.
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The Chinese authorities use a variety of means to control Weibo. Many of the posts criticising officials involved in a recent student-led protest against the construction of a copper factory in Shifang in Sichuan province were deleted, although by no means all – an indication of how social media has created new space for debate in Chinese society.
“Since Weibo, information in Chinese society has changed, it’s become more transparent, more direct,” says Wen Huajian author of China’s first microblog novel, Love in the Age of Weibo, which was published via 500 posts on the micro-blogging site.
Mr Wen says sensitive topics like the frequent clashes between residents and local governments over forced demolitions are now widely debated.
“Web users will probably pay attention – and often the mainstream media will respond immediately, or sometimes the authorities too. In the past this was impossible.”