China is clamping down even more now on social media, stopping people spreading ideas. At the same time, Chinese authorities are using it to enforce control over the public. The Great Firewall of Chinas has blocked sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. But social media is important in a place like China where there are no general elections or free press, and where extrajudicial detentions and police brutality are widespread
The Financial Times reports that heavy users of Sina Weibo, the country's leading Twitter substitute, says that the microblog has become less vibrant with new controls introduced over the last few months restricting what people can say. And as reported here, Chinese authorities have shut down 206 microblogs for carrying pornographic and "vulgar" content. Whatever that might mean, they haven't detailed exactly what crimes were being perpetrated.
At the same time, Chinese police are starting to use Twitter. Cops in China are tweeting about how they are protecting the public and keeping the peace, all part of official policy.
But Chinese authorities have a problem, social media in China is more popular than it in the US and other developed countries. Mashable reports that of the country's half billion Internet users, half of them are on multiple social networks and 30 per cent log into at least one network each day. Chinese citizens spend an average of 2.7 hours online per day – second to only the Japanese. Chinese love social networking because of factors like long distance migration away from families for work, single child families leaving children who yearn for social interactions at home, the prevalence of affordable Internet and the widespread mistrust of the government-controlled media.
They won't be able to control it, and that could destabilise the world's powerhouse economy.
no comment untill now