social media and censorship in china

Synthesio – Social Media and Censorship in China 1

Breaking Down the Great Firewall

SOCIAL MEDIA & CENSORSHIP IN CHINA


Social Media in China: Major Trends1 40% of Chinese Citizens are Online By the end of December 2012, China had 564 million Internet users, 50.9 million more than the year before,

and representing nearly 40% of the Chinese population. The Internet penetration rate amongst the

population is now 39.9%, a growth of 3.8% compared with the end of 2011. The amount of time people spent

online also increased – from 18.7 hours to 20.5 hours per week on average.

1 Statistics in this section come from the Statistical Report on Internet Development in China, produced by the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), January 2013

http://www1.cnnic.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads/201302/P020130221391269963814.pdf


Cellphones are the No. 1 Way to Access the Internet in China China had 388 million mobile phone Internet users in June 2012 and 422 at the end of 2012 - 64.4 million

more than at the end of 2011. Among all Internet users, those using mobile phones to access the Web

increased from 69.3% at the end of 2011 to 74.5%. The number of people using their phone to access the

Internet surpassed the number of people using desktop devices midway through 2012, making cellphones the

no. 1 way to access the Web in China.

Social Network & Microblogging Usage Continues to Grow 309 million people used Twitter-esque microblogging platforms such as Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo and

Netease Weibo in 2012, an increase of 58.73 million from the previous year. The number of users of social

networking websites (including Facebook and Linkedin clones such as Renren, Kaixin001, Tianji, Wealink and

Ushi) was 275 million by the end of December 2012, up by 12.6% over the end of 2011.


Censorship Most Western Sites Are Blocked by the Government The Chinese government implemented the Golden Shield Project, commonly known as the Great Firewall of

China or GFW, in 1998, to monitor and censor the web within the country. The Chinese Director of

Information, Wang Chen, declared that 350 million pieces of information, including text, photos and videos,

were blocked by the GWF on the Chinese web in 2010. (A 2012 study by Carnegie Mellon University

estimated that 16% of all online conversations in China were deleted by the government in 2012.)2

Access to most major social networks as well as many Western news sites is restricted or impossible unless a

proxy server is used to guarantee the anonymity of the web user. The few Chinese members of Facebook are

often people that have lived or studied abroad and wish to maintain links with these communities, but in

order to connect with their fellow countrymen and women in China, it is best to create accounts on Chinese

social networks.

2 Language Technologies Institute, Carnegie Mellon University


The Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon

Subversive lexicons have been developed by Chinese bloggers as a way to express opinions about the

government without falling foul of the censors. The China Digital Times has compiled a dictionary of social

media slang and terminology, along with their etymologies and back stories. Examples include:


Insights From a Self-Proclaimed Chinese Tech Activist

Synthesio interviewed a self-proclaimed Chinese tech activist, whose name shall remain anonymous. He has

been blogging since 2002, and has been forced in the past to open up several new blogs after others had

been closed by the infamous Great Fire Wall (GFW) of China.

Copycats

“Twitter, Facebook and similar social network sites are nipped in the bud before they become popular.

Instead, there are always copycats growing up as alternatives for local Chinese people to use, e.g. Renren -

Facebook, Sina Weibo - Twitter, Youku - Youtube, and so on. This is what the government loves to see.”

Censoring the Chinese Internet

“China has the most advanced censorship system in the world. I don't know the exact number of people that

work for the government. We call these people the '50 Cent Army' or '50 Cent Party' for the amount they are

paid per deleted post. They have an automated keyword filtering system, and once any sensitive word

triggers the system, the content will be automatically blocked. The human moderators monitor an assigned

area (boards, users or other topics). I believe they also have a behind-the-scene supporting system.”

“Blogs in foreign languages are better treated. I guess the government thinks only a few people will read

blogs in foreign languages. But there are exceptions, such as Danwei, an English blog popular among expats

in China, which was also blocked. For blogs hosted on foreign servers, it depends. If you are politics oriented,

of course, you are dead. If you’re not, then good luck.”

Getting Past the Blocks

According to our interviewee, “Tech bloggers in China play an important role in bringing freedom of speech

while introducing new technologies. Their natural advantages are their knowledge of the Internet and their

skills to avoid being blocked from accessing information. Third party software, SSH, VPN: they spread the

tools around the internet to get over the blocks. They are usually active users on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube

and other blocked services. And some of them host their blogs overseas.”


False Comments

“There are many Internet PR companies now working on popular forums. They are hired to create events

marketing for their clients, attack clients' competitors, and plant other types of dubious content. Even large

PR agencies will hire people to transfer ethical problems to “net gangsters”. There are many so-called ‘soft

articles’ which are indirect advertisements. It is hard to differentiate between the real customer voice and the

soft articles, at least for me. The good thing, though, is that Renren, Kaixin (Facebook copycat) and Weibo

(Twitter copycat) are currently not so easy to submit false information to, unlike the forums. So if you want to

monitor social media, they are a good start.”

Monitoring Chinese Social Media Content and Doing Business in China

“For businesses who want to use social networks in China, I think it is a good time now so long as you just

focus on business. If your activity becomes a threat for the government, you have to cooperate or stop

working in China. Google’s retreat of their servers back to Hongkong to resist the government's censorship

demands is a good example.

“I think Sina Weibo is the most successful social network right now in China (and will continue to be in the

coming years). It’s used by many celebrities and other so called opinion leaders who are a tremendous

drawcard in terms of attracting active users. And I know its founders try to balance between censorship and

freedom of speech. On one hand, they are very careful not to touch any raw nerves with the government. On

the other hand, they enable some limited freedom of speech which I think is creating a gradual relaxation in

the level of the government's tolerance. This limited freedom lights up many users' passions. There are many

meaningful social events that are spread and communicated by Weibo.”

>> How Google Stood Up to the Chinese Government

In January 2010, Google discovered that Gmail accounts of several Chinese activists had been

hacked. Detecting an attack too sophisticated to be the work of an average web user, Google

suspected it to be the work of the Chinese government, and published an article on its blog to this

effect. The U.S. company had previously agreed to censor its search results in China. However, upon this discovery of piracy,

Google decided to uphold its motto “Don’t be evil”, and announced the closure of its Chinese site. The site was closed in March

of 2010, and people wishing to visit Google in China were redirected to a Hong Kong version of the search engine which is

uncensored. The government was capable of blocking the redirection at any time. Four months later, Google managed to renew

its authorization to operate in China by delaying the redirect with a page requesting a click to access Google.com.hk. However,

authorities can still reverse their decision and numerous Google services, like YouTube and Blogger, continue to be prohibited.


The Rise of the Copycats The inability of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube to operate in China, has opened the way for

a raft of copycat platforms, each with millions of users.3 Subject to the control of Chinese authorities, they are

obligated to monitor and filter comments made by users or risk seeing their sites suspended.

3 2012 user numbers, sourced from platforms’ own websites and annual reports


Social Networks Are Mostly Used By Students4 The Facebook clones and Social Gaming Platforms making the biggest splash in China are:

Renren, formerly Xiaonei (literally, “schoolyard”), was born as a network for re-connecting friends from

school years, and had 172 million registered users by the end of 2012. RenRen pretty much looks, feels

and does exactly what Facebook does.

Douban is popular with special interest groups and communities, and for networking around specific

topics, and has over 100 million users.

QZone (owned by Tencent), with 700 million+ monthly active users, is China’s largest social gaming

platform.

Chinese Netizens Have Embraced a Variety of Youtube Clones as a Way to Upload and View Videos A disproportionately high number of Chinese netizens upload videos to the web (28.7%, versus 15.3% in the

USA, 11.5% in the UK, and 9.5% in France).5 The giants in this space are Youku and Tudou, with Xunlei, Qiyi,

Ku6 and 56 battling it out for third place.

Instant Messaging Platform, QQ, has a Staggering 794 Million Active Users per Month6 QQ numbers (aka: instant messaging accounts) are nearly as ubiquitous in China as phone numbers with

people under the age of 40. The huge popularity of QQ has underpinned the rise to dominance of Tencent, a

company which owns many of the most popular social media platforms in China.

4 Neilsen, May 2012 5 GlobalWebIndex Social Engagement Benchmark 2012 6 Source : Tencent, November 2012

http://renren.com/

http://www.douban.com/

http://www.tencent.com/en-us/index.shtml


A Social Media Presence is a Key Brand Asset in China

66% of China’s social media users follow brands and on average each user follows 8 brands.7 22% of users

claim they are more likely to consider a brand that has a lot of “friends” or is “liked” by many while 54%

would buy a brand if a friend liked or followed it on social media. Furthermore, Chinese consumers are more

likely to trust companies who microblog, suggesting that an official presence helps validate the brand in the

eyes of consumers and can significantly impact on overall perception of brand values. Companies already

recognize the value of a social presence in China. 211 of the top 500 global brands have Weibo enterprise

accounts with an average of 218,000 fans/followers.8

In China, Word-of-Mouth Recommendations Are King China’s netizens are more likely to consider social networking sites a good source of word-of-mouth

information on brand experiences than are users in the U.S., at 23% compared to 18% in the US. 90% believe

that information about brands on social media is reliable.9 In a country where more people rely on word-of-

mouth recommendations than information from news sources and advertising, generating a strong social

media presence and opening a direct dialogue with consumers will be crucial for any brand aiming to harness

this opportunity and prompt consumers along the purchasing cycle.

7 Sources: Insites Consulting, September 2012 and DCCI, September 2012 8 Source: Goldpebble 9 Source: Insites Consulting 2011


Tips for Brands!

Tap into the Power of the Weibo A combination of the increased popularity of the internet, the development of online payment methods and

improvements in the reliability of logistical services has lead to significant growth in e-commerce in China.

This means that microblogging sites are now a significant source of influence for online shoppers.10

Tailor Content to Reflect Wider Platform Usage Behaviours Users in China spend up to an hour per day on video sites such as Youku and Tudou, compared with less than

15 minutes spent by Americans on YouTube. The average video is much longer than the shorter snippets

witnessed on YouTube, meaning that brands can afford to disseminate a greater depth of information on the

channel and anticipate longer engagement times.

10 DCCI, September 2012


Harness Existing Platform Features Gaming on Kaixin100 is a heavily used feature. BMW leveraged this facet by integrating its presence on the

platform with a “Car Parking” game, which is now installed on 45 million profile pages and played by 5.5

million people each day. In keeping with BMW’s aspirational brand values, their cars are more expensive to

purchase with virtual currency and therefore offer a feeling of achievement for the users when purchased.

Successful Case Studies: Rules of Engagement

How can brands harness this opportunity? Which companies have successfully utilized social media in China

and what activities have brought success? The following section outlines elements common to a number of

effective brand campaigns in China and provides simple guidelines for effective engagement with millions of

receptive consumers.

Understand How Your Audiences Use Your Content Fashion brand Maybelline identified that their Renren and Sina Weibo

pages attracted different audiences, with Weibo attracting a higher

proportion of brand users while potential consumers were using the

Renren page to find out more about the brand and its products. The

brand therefore developed different content strategies for each property.

Create Complementary Communities Across Platforms Lancome created its own forum community (www.rosebeauty.com.cn) to

be the online hub of its consumer engagement in China. Successful in

generating high levels of interaction and discussion about Lancome

products, the forum also allows users to purchase online. Lancome has

also created a further community on Kaixin001, implementing activities

such as beauty contests, personality and skin tests in order to build

members and drive them to the original brand hub.

http://www.rosebeauty.com.cn/


Leverage Influencers Watsons undertook a rigorous analysis of fan participation levels on

social media and built a strong community through demonstrating an

understanding of their interests. Dettol managed to increase sales of its

anti-bacterial spray in Nanjing by 86% by identifying influential netizens

and providing 90,000 of them with sample bottles.

Place Your Social Presence Close to the Point of Sale In order to encourage fans to interact with the brand, Dell set up a

flagship store on its brand page, where fans could use coupons to buy

products from the store or gather product information and talk with sales

associates. By running various network building activities and offering

exclusive offers for fans on Renren, the company successfully sold 3,387

computers, after 15 weeks of implementing their social activity, via

direct click-throughs from Renren.


Conclusion

That the web in general, and social media in particular, offers an increasing opportunity for brands in China is

not a new insight.

Improved infrastructure and governmental investment have led to among the highest global levels of

internet penetration in the world, while societal trends such as rural-to-urban migration (which has physically

separated families), the loneliness of the one-child generation, and a distrust of information from

government-controlled media have all contributed to the incessant rise of social media platforms and their

usage. While censorship has undoubtedly affected the dissemination of news and free information in the

country, the inherent spirit of sociability and rebellion hard-wired in human nature means that bloggers and

commenters have found routes around the blockades.

Due to the size and receptiveness of the Chinese consumer market, social media affords brands the

opportunity to shift brand preference and communicate brand values to an extent perhaps not attainable in

more cynical Western markets.

Clear links have already been established between social media presences and product sales, while

increasing brand presence has led to a greater understanding among marketers of how to make the most of

the opportunity.

Yet perhaps the most interesting finding is that while differences exist, they are only by degree. Granted the

audiences are bigger in China, but social media provides access to mass market numbers in most countries.

Principles of engagement remain the same across all markets: listen to your audiences in order to better

understand them, speak to them in a relevant manner and provide them with content that creates value.

However, in China your audience is more likely to respond to and respect communications and seemingly less

likely to reject them.

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social media and censorship in china

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