Differences between Twitter and Chinese Sina Weibo

Recently I read a blog post saying that Chinese social media users are ‘happier’ and write ‘less political’ messages on their profiles than Westerners, according to a major new study by the computer scientists at the Delft University of Technology in Holland and the Shanghai Jiaotong University who studied 46 million messages posted on Twitter and the enormously popular Sina Weibo.

I think this is interesting because I use both Twitter and Sina Weibo very often. Here are some differences I came up with from my personal experience.

1. Identity verification: On Sina Weibo, most of the users have to submit their real identity to the Sina company in order to use more functions. A lot of Weibo users who have a large number of followers, such as celebrities, websites, and organizations, have already used their real name as account names, which encourages more new users to be identified to get certain badges beside their profiles. For example, I gave out my ID number to get verified so I got a new badge to show off.

2. Function of social media: Most of the time I see Weibo as a tool for entertainment merged with commercials because there is plenty of information regarding sales, constellation, comics and daily personal posts. Besides, it has been developed more like a Facebook in that there is an app and game center for users to connect and participate in this type of social media. On Twitter, on the other hand, the content created by users is more narrowed down. People tend to retweet more about political and other news without sharing too many personal stories or feelings.

3. Censorship: Obviously, corporations in mainland China such as Sina, for survival  have to compromise to the censorship policies implemented by the Chinese government. Users create “happier” contents with the guidance and direction of Sina. Any inappropriate user content will be detected by the Sina system and deleted by the staff in charge. Sometimes, users’ accounts get blocked or the users get tracked down for posts that are considered sensitive. It’s hard to say Twitter has this similar implicit trend from my observation so far. But anyway, “less political” is sort of a condition for users to continue their rights of speech.

Unpacking KONY 2012

Unpacking KONY 2012
Ethan Zuckerman

Zuckerman’s blog “Unpacking KONY 2012 “ describes a video and advocacy organization Invisible Children and how the KONY 2012 video worked/failed as a social media advocacy project. When the video first came out every college and high school student reposted it to all of their friends to show their support for the cause. Anyone who tried to ask questions about the campaign, organization, or true situation in Uganda was shut down immediately and hated on for not caring enough about the poor defenseless “invisible” African children.
The truth of the 2012 campaign though, was that it was advertising a problem that was no longer a huge threat, it did not mention the Uganda and American support already out looking for Kony, and it took away the voice of the locals. One of the most important lessons I have learned in International Development, Public Health, and just volunteering in the community is that it is not our job to speak for others. We are not there to tell them what the problems are and how we are going to solve them, but to offer our support and stand with them. The Invisible Children Campaign “gives little to no agency to the Ugandans or the organizations that want to help.” Invisible Children has no Africans on the board of directors and very few on the senior staff.
Our job is not to solve other people’s problems. Our job is to work with others and help empower them. American college students do not know have the answers and this video gives students the message that they were the ones in power, they were the voice of all the “invisible children”.

Does social media really cause political change?

In a 2010 New Yorker article, Malcolm Gladwell argued that social media does not strongly influence social change. He argues that true social activism requires strong social ties to a cause and to others fighting for that cause. Without these ties, no one will take the necessary risks. Social media, however, encourages weak ties. It allows us to be a part of a cause without actually doing anything. Therefore, it does not create social change and may actually distract from real movements.

In response to this article, the New York Times posted an online forum for discussion. Six experts weigh in on Gladwell’s assertions. Click here to read their arguments.

Some of the main points they discussed were:

• Movements not only need serious risk takers, they also need a large group of people sympathetic to the movement.
• It is harder for oppressive regimes to staunch online communication than the mass media.
• The internet provides new tools to inform, persuade, and communicate.
• Every demonstration can have a global audience. There is no mass media filter.
• The internet does for movements now what TV did for the civil rights movement. Without images of marches and police brutality, far fewer people would support the civil rights cause.
• One potential problem with virtual activism is that it may take the place of conventional activism which is far more involved and effective.

“Syria: A War Reported By Citizen-Journalists, Social Media”

This article, written by David Arnold explains that ordinary Syrian citizens are the cheif reporters of the Syrian conflict. Because President Bashar al-Assad has prevented international media from providing on-the-ground coverage of the conflict, Syrian citizens have filled their role — using social media websites to interact with the world. Arnold cites hundreds, if not thousands of Syrian activists as using ICT devices such as smartphones, cameras and video cameras to visually document events. Such anonymous citizen-journalists then post their footage to Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and more, enabeling citizens to show the government’s atrocities to the rest of the world and make their voices heard, despite Assad’s international media blackout.

In addition to posting visual documentation to social media sites, these citizen-journalists often directly inform international news sources of recent events. For example Liz Sly, the Washington Posts’s Baghdad bureau chief who is in charge of reporting on the Syrian conflict, depends on over 100 Syrian amateur journalists to inform her newspaper’s articles. Though verifying their information is difficult, there is no other alternative.

The civilian opposition within Syria also relies on citizen-journalists. For example, the Local Coordination Committees of Syria (LCC) depends on hundreds of voluneteers to document protests, strikes, and government attrocities to inform its 24-hour reporting to the international media. Additionally, Rami Jarrah, a Syrian blogger residing in Cairo, recently founded the Activists News Association (ANA) which provides citizen reporters in Syria with training and equipment.

Arnold emphasizes that these citizen-journalists risk their lives daily to communicate Assad’s attrocities to the world and bring justice to their county. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has labeled Syria as the most dangerous country for journalists in the world, listing 13 journalists as killed in the country to date. Yet the overall estimate of killed journalists who were unknown or working for the LCC is likely much higher.  For example, Rafif Jouejati, a spokesperson for the LCC stated “We’ve lost a great many activists detained, arrested, tortured to death and shot on the spot,” said Jouejati. “It is in the hundreds.”

The combined role of  citizen-journalists and social-media in Syria is of the utmost importance. Social media is helping Syrian citizens find their voice amidst utter repression, as citizens capture government attrocities and post their footage for all the world to see. An everyday, individual citizen under severe repression can now influence an international audiences’ opinion–a phenomenon unique to the digitized world of the 21st century.