Sina Weibo, a micro blogging site, has taken hold and is
currently booming in China. The demand
for Weibo grew from the ban on Twitter in China. The growth of Weibo has been
phenomenal. Launched only three years
after Twitter, there are currently over 300 million users connected on Sina
Weibo. Similar to Twitter, Sina Weibo
allows users to post comments, links, photos, vidoes, etc. Weibo allows users to type 140 Chinese
characters which equals about 80 English characters, therefore the posts allow
for more depth than Twitter.
The most interesting topic that comes to play when
discussing Weibo is the censorship issue. According to Twitter they do no
actively monitor posts and users can post about just about any topic they wish.
However, Chinese legislation does not permit users of Weibo to speak as freely.
Posts about government officials and hot topics such as student protests will
often be taken down in less than 3 hours of being posted. A number of
individuals, including journalists and intellectuals, have been arrested and
had their accounts shut down. It is unclear if it is directly the government
controlling this activity or if it is Sina Weibo being extremely cautious. Whatever the reason, it is interesting to see
the change that Sina Weibo has had on the Chinese culture. The introduction of
Weibo has allowed the Chinese to become more outspoken and direct against
injustices. For example, a sensitive subject like clashes between local
governments and citizens over forced demolitions is now widely debated. Sina
Weibo has allowed Chinese citizens to have a voice that has never been there
before.
Sina Weibo will only continue to grow in the future. It is
very closely related with e-commerce which makes it easy for different
industries to break into the market using Weibo. For example, a Weibo based online travel product was
launched which allows users to look for travel information as well as make a
reservation. In addition, several shopping sites such as 360buy.com have
partnered with Sina. Currently, Sina is the leading competitor with regards to
sales. If a company wishes to enter into the Chinese market, Sina Weibo is the
place to look. It will be exciting to see where this site takes things in the
years to come. Some believe it will even
pass Twitter in growth.
With China quickly approaching and soon to overcome the U.S. economically I would also think it would stand to reason that soon there ethical standards of this kind of social media might change. It seems as they become a prominent authority they may seek to lower their censorship of sites like this. It will be interesting to see what sort of changes occur with social media outlets like these in developing countries such as China.
ReplyDeleteAs a Chinese, I know sina Weibo much better than Twitter, Even Twitter is behind Sina Weibo. The reason why Sina Weibo is growing fast in past years I think the big population is a point. When I was using Weibo, that was a preview trying edition, you post something in your Weibo Account,day after day,you can follow other and you do have follower. At the beginning of the time, I thought it just like a post board, between me and my friends, but Sina Weibo did deeper action, they invited some famous people like movie star and popular singer joined Weibo. You need to have a Weibo Account to take a look.After that, Sina Weibo have more and more user. Like you said, If a company wishes to enter into the Chinese market, Sina Weibo is the place to look. It will be exciting to see where this site takes things in the years to come. Some believe it will even pass Twitter in growth.
ReplyDeleteby wenyi chen
I am looking forward to the release of the English Weibo. It sounds much more interactive than Twitter and there is so much more that can be generated through a post on Weibo than Twitter. There is more content which makes it easier to express your opinions. I'm excited to try it out.
ReplyDeleteMeaghann Smith
Its really exciting to me that the Chinese have a form of twitter and a voice that they can raise when they feel like something is wrong. I have never heard of Sina Weibo before but I feel like this is one of the few outlets out there for the Chinese people to speak freely. I can only hope that in the future more of these cites will be created for the people. In my opinion it is completely wrong for the Chinese government to restrict what they can and cannot say.
ReplyDelete