Sina Weibo’s watershed came in 2011 after two high-speed trains crashed in Wenzhou: as officials bungled the response, and then censored news stories, netizens stormed onto Sina’s microblogging platform to voice their outrage and fill gaps of knowledge with educated speculation. Four years later, just as Weibo has seemingly run its course, a different program is stepping into its place as the prime facilitator of unfettered discussion in this country of shackled exchange.

As far as watershed moments go, WeChat’s was notably less newsworthy in the classic sense: it was a sex scandal. Yet it was significant because the sex only became a scandal after — or the exact moment when — a message was transferred from one man’s phone onto another’s via this Tencent chatting platform. By the time the now-infamous Uniqlo sex video reached traditional media — traditional, these days, referring to the Internet — practically everyone who cared had seen it, or knew it existed.

This brings us to the horrific stabbing yesterday morning — outside, of all places, the Sanlitun Uniqlo that nestled into our collective consciousness only a month prior — details of which revealed itself almost exclusively on WeChat. Perhaps this seems unextraordinary, considering how fully WeChat has uplinked with most of our lives. But let’s pretend, for a moment, it were not possible to dart in and out of six separate chat rooms, to easily compare discrepancies in different tellings of the same story, to pose questions to dozens of people at the same time. How many instant messaging windows would you have opened? How many text messages sent? Phone numbers dialed? There was a time not long ago when we’d have to go to the scene to sniff for answers, if that’s what we wanted. Upon being stonewalled by official sources, you’d have to inquire of strangers, and then you would still only have a small piece of the puzzle.

Consider how many of us learned about the victim, the Chinese woman who was stabbed in the back (and how did we know it was the back?). It was likely from the following message, currently going around WeChat, sent from a person who knows both the woman and the foreigner who knelt over her:

Guys, it is very bad news. Our captain roro s wife has been killed by a crazy guy using a 1 meter long knife (“sabre” in french) a few hours ago in sanlitun. They were coming out of the embassy to officialize their wedding when they came accross this crazy chinese guy who told roro he did not like american people. He replied he was french. They left and he inserted his long knife inside isabelle s back.. Trying to defend her, the knife went inside roro s belly twice…. Isabelle died right after she made it to the hospital. Romain is going through an operation now because it was bleeding inside his body..This happened exactly 2 years after the murder of an american citizen in joyce city..
I can t find the words… Huge shock

Hours earlier, “My friend knows someone who knows the girl,” someone may have said in a group you’re in.

And those videos from the aftermath of the attack? Found on WeChat, of course.

As human beings we are inclined to gossip, and WeChat is currently the best tool for our time and place. It has tapped into our instinct to share and learn. Once upon a time, in a bygone age, we would gather around TVs for the 6 o’clock news, thus was our instinct to know and to know collectively. Well, China doesn’t air real news — nothing we can trust, I mean – and who has time for the television anymore? With WeChat, we get all the angles, sometimes simultaneously. We gather sources that we deem credible, and ignore those a bit too eager to forward rumors. We build a story, confirm or deny that story against the observations of others, and pass it into other groups. The transference of knowledge, from one bubble to the next, is seamless and swift. If we thought print media was slow before, print journalists are practically tablet engravers in this age of the intranet. No story published tomorrow will contain information that a smart and plugged-in smartphone user won’t have already obtained from multiple sources tonight.

The service won’t render the Internet obsolete, but it makes certain parts of it less vital: Sina Weibo, with all its ghosts and overseers? Who needs it. Twitter, that echo chamber with character limits? It’s fast becoming a place where the oldest of old-media hang out, those who haven’t ingratiated themselves into enough group chats. Facebook? LOL.

But WeChat, of course, did not rise out of pure innovation. Sure, it’s faster than microblogs (which are faster than blogs, etc.), and more tailored – you can choose who to follow, what groups to join or leave — but it would be much less useful if it were restrictive. That is, if messages were routinely censored, and certain topics disallowed. In other words, if it were a mobile version of Sina Weibo, which has been punished often enough that it will gladly stifle user participation to avoid offending sensibilities.

Finally, WeChat has the ability to create action, similar to 2009-11 Twitter (before Twitter became suddenly dead). A person — any person — can propose an action, and if it makes enough sense, creates enough momentum and gains enough support – all organically, of course, like a snowball — it will translate into movement. Ultimately, for as comfortable as virtual spaces have become, users still seek to translate their virtual conversations into real-world activity. For an example, check out this message currently making the WeChat rounds:

Here is what we all should do: Tomorrow, take a little time out of your day and go leave flowers and/or positive messages on the ground where it happened. We have to change the mentality here, enough with this “If I help, I’ll get in trouble” or “China doesn’t value people’s life” excuses. You can be black, white, yellow red or blue it doesn’t matter, bottom line is this, if you are in China YOU are CHINESE, you want to make China a better place then make it happen. So tomorrow let’s all show that we care, that life matters and that we are concerned by deposing flowers. People might look at you, judge you, ask you to leave but keep in mind that it is because you are doing the right thing. Let’s all make sure that tomorrow by the end of the day, all wechat moments are filled with pictures of flowers, and trust me, by night, people will light candles all over the place. This is how you change mentality, this is how you show you care about something, by doing something as simple as deposing a flower. So what’s your excuse?

I’m not saying there will be “candles all over the place” by nightfall tomorrow, but I’m willing to believe a few people will lay flowers. We’re just talking flowers, by the way, but authorities will notice. They’ll think, Next time, what if it’s not just flowers commemorating the innocent victim of a random attack? What if it’s, say, to commemorate a self-immolation at Tianamen? (Guess where I learned about the man who purportedly set himself on fire at Tiananmen last night?) What if it’s… something bigger?

It seems almost impossible that WeChat escapes official censure. It’s too easy to use, and thereby too dangerous. And this is how an innovative piece of technology that’s born in the People’s Republic of China dies there. Eventually, the only thing left to destroy will be censorship itself.

UPDATE, 4:16 pm: Flowers.

As the US and EU prepare to levy economic sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine, Russia’s leaders may be growing desperate to find support wherever they can. On Tuesday at 12:14 pm, the official Sina Weibo microblog of the Russian Embassy posted a message that, in no uncertain terms, sought Chinese empathy. There was one big problem: the post contained a remarkably tone deaf reference to the “Tiananmen Incident,” i.e. the 1989 student protests in Beijing that resulted in a violent government crackdown, i.e. the one event that no one here is supposed to talk about.

The Russian embassy compared the current sanctions against them to the sanctions against China following its June Fourth crackdown, which you may have heard referred to as a “massacre.” Is Russia foreshadowing what’ll happen in the Crimea if Ukraine doesn’t cooperate?

The reference amounted to “ripping open [our] wounds,” as one netizen commented; “selling out comrades,” wrote another.

Two days after the posting, the weibo is still up. Do Sina’s censors have limits? Does their censoring power stop at the verified accounts of foreign embassies?

Bernd Zhang of Hug China first alerted us to this story. We thank him for translating part of the Russian embassy’s message:

西方制裁应让俄中两国走得更近。 美国和欧盟因克里米亚入俄而对俄罗斯采取的第三波制裁包括一些西方国家停止同俄罗斯进行军事合作。目前俄罗斯所处的境况有点儿类似于中国在天安门事件后所遭遇的境况。

Western sanctions should bring China and Russia closer. The third wave of sanctions imposed by the US and EU on Russia over the annexation of Crimea includes cancellation of military cooperation with Russia. The current situation in Russia is somewhat similar to what China encountered after the Tiananmen Incident.

We wonder how many people even get the reference? Hug China has translated some netizen responses:

時l光：Blackening Chinese government in an allusive way.

我是你影子____：A dying man wants someone to accompany him to the hell.

个记尴尬了：Idiot Russia, who goes closer with you?

我是李鸽：Russia, haven’t you done enough harm on us?

木秋亦：Go away! Who is your friend? Do not drag us into the same water! West is the largest market for us.

桂人路问：Moral values have pushed Chinese people closer to USA.

忽悠人被忽悠：Already reported to authority. Where and when did what incident happen? There is not a clue on Baidu so it must be a rumor!

个记尴尬了：Sina, you should block this account!

Diplomacy in the digital / social media age sure can be interesting.

This Weibo posted by Russian embassy in Beijing comparing Crimea Crisis with Tiananmen Incident has attracted much attention in China (Hug China)

Ever look at social media and find yourself overwhelmed by the negativity of the content, the cynicism and choler, the splenetic outbursts and general ire? Or find yourself similarly frustrated with the state of the world and life, prone to rant and rave yourself? Turns out, there’s a good reason for that. Angry posts are republished and forwarded more often and spread faster, according to a Chinese study of user behavior on Sina Weibo.

The authors of the study, Rui Fan and researchers at Beihang University in China, think anger actually bonds strangers who otherwise have nothing in common. Indeed, weibo has always, at least in part, been a platform for voiceless citizens to communicate. The two topics that are most likely to bring netizens together are sovereignty (e.g., South China Sea) and social issues — neither of which should be a surprise.

MIT Technology Review explains how the study was done:

During six months in 2010, Rui and co collected some 70 million tweets from 200,000 users and constructed a social network in which users are linked if they mutually interact by sending messages to each other or retweeting each other’s tweets, for example.

To ensure that they only studied people who were strongly connected, Rui and co only included people who had more than 30 interactions during the test period.

Next, they determined the sentiment of each tweet in their database by analysing the emoticons they contained. They divided these into four categories, expressing joy, sadness, anger or disgust.

Finally, they studied the way sentiments spread through the network. For example, if one person sent an angry tweet, how likely was it that a recipient would also send an angry message, and how likely was it that the recipient of this message would pass on the same sentiment and so on?

“Anger has a surprisingly higher correlation than other emotions,” the authors conclude.

They neglected to also investigate the frequency of forwarded cat pics. If it was a cat being abused though, they’re saying, it would definitely go viral.

Most Influential Emotions on Social Networks Revealed (MIT Technology Review)

The relationship between China’s central and local governments has never been linear or completely top-down. There are times of harmony, but more often, there’s tension. In the recent past, thanks to social media, conflicts and disagreements usually kept behind closed doors have begun leaking into the public domain.

Several recent posts on Sina Weibo by legal organs revealed that tensions are as manifest today as they were during historical times. Many netizens have gone as far to call these posts an act of “rebellion.”

It all started at the end of August when Beijing suddenly intensified its Internet censorship. Celebrity bloggers on Weibo were told to self-censor. Several “online rumor mongers” were arrested. And now, anyone tweeting “rumors” that potentially harm social order and national interests can end up in jail.

As if to mock the anti-online rumor campaign, the official Sina Weibo of Guangdong Supreme People’s Court quoted an ancient Chinese story from 542 B.C., “Zichan Won’t Abolish Town Hall (子产不毁乡校).”

Zichan was a powerful politician in the Zheng Kingdom. As the story goes, officials told him that many people were gathering at town halls to discuss political issues and criticize the government. One politician urged Zichan to abolish such town halls. Zichan refused: “Why abolish them? People go to town halls to discuss the merits of our policies. I will push forward policies that they like, and adjust those they don’t like. The people are like our mentors. Criticism will decline if we try hard to do a good job, but won’t if we use power to suppress people’s complaints. Criticism is like a river. To block a river won’t work. The best way is to lead and channel it.”

Many netizens hailed the courage of the person behind the Weibo account. At the same time, they questioned how a Chinese politician from several thousands of years ago can be smarter than today’s.

As if on cue, “Zichan Won’t Abolish Town Hall” is now a banned search term on Weibo.

Guangdong’ Supreme Court has seemingly started a chorus. Quoting from history or from famous figure is common practice in China who wish to avoid direct political confrontation. More courts have since done the same.

A few days later, the Intermediate People’s Court in Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Hubei province quoted Justice John Marshall Harlan from the famous Cohen v. California case:

The constitutional right of free expression is powerful medicine in a society as diverse and populous as ours. That the air may at times seemed filled with verbal cacophony is, in this sense, not a sign of weakness but of strength.

The lack of freedom of speech isn’t the only thing that China’s local legal organs are complaining about. The Justice Bureau of Dongguan, Guangdong province used a quote from Wang Fuzi, a well-known Chinese philosopher of the late-Ming and early-Qing Dynasties, to issue its opinion on corruption:

To severely punish corrupt officials of lower ranks, but to ignore those with similar crimes at the top. As such, the more severely the law punishes, the more corrupt cases there will be, and thus the more chaotic the country will become.

The intended goal for getting government agencies and officials on social media was to allow more open communication with the people. But what if these government agencies, or at least the employees in charge of managing these social media accounts, start to use the platform to openly voice disagreement with the central government?

Liu Guofeng, curator of the Sina Weibo account of Enshi Intermediate People’s Court, resigned a few days after the John Marshall post (though he claimed on his own Weibo that this had nothing to do with the quote).

The government can always tighten its grip on its employees, especially social media managers. But as one netizen wrote, “Suppression and prohibition won’t work in the long run.”

Alia is the founder of Offbeat China, where this post also appears.

Iron Mike Tyson, former heavyweight champion of the boxing world, registered a verified Sina Weibo account on Monday, and four posts later, he’s already hitting all the right spots. Check out his most recent message:

As Offbeat China explains:

After greeting his online fans in China, Tyson asked: “Who is the best fighter in China?” In response, one genius Chinese netizen jianlin_ryan answered: “城管 (cheng guan), urban management.”

“Who is Chengguan? A tough man? I’ve never heard it.” Tyson replied.

Tyson might not know what chengguan are, but we hope he does. And we hope he realizes full well that chengguan are bullies who only pick on the weak and powerless. Chengguan, a tough man? Not at all. They’re weak and pathetic in the popular perception — weak and pathetic enough to kill fruit vendors and stomp on people’s heads, among other things.

Welcome to China’s side of the Internet, Mike. We really hope, in real life, you’ll cross paths someday with a chengguan.

Mike Tyson challenged China’s urban law enforcement officers (Offbeat China)

Lionel Messi endorses WeChat, i.e. Weixin, i.e. the next Sina Weibo, as some people have called it on account of its functionality and interstellar growth. You can send texts for free (pending Internet connection), start group chats, and deliver photos and voice messages. And as Messi demonstrates in the above 30-second ad, you can communicate via video, too — Instagram, Sina Weibo, and Vine all in one.

I don’t want this to sound like an endorsement for Tencent, an ad upon an ad, because WeChat certainly doesn’t need any more publicity in China. The state-owned telecoms have already teamed up to get their powerful government friends to crack down on the freeness of WeChat’s services, because they feel threatened. But just know the company has big plans for international growth, and Messi will certainly help. What next, the Latin America market?

What’s best about tapping Messi as an endorser is it raises the stakes in China’s tech war, bringing it beyond the borders of this country and out of the reach of petty state-owned enterprise leaders who chuck feces at up-and-coming innovaters who challenge their monopolies. Messi may not have the impact that Michael Jordan did on Nike in the sneaker wars of the 1990s, but our hope is that he spurs Tencent’s great rival, Sina, which has international ambitions of its own, to try to top them. When companies compete, consumers win.

Youku video: behind the scenes of Messi ad.

(H/T Peter Lee)

Hong Kong University’s China Media Project already has an awesome service in WeiboScope, which preserves deleted Sina Weibo messages deemed too “sensitive.” Apparently determined to bring those messages to a wider audience, CMP is now translating some of them into English with its newest service, WeiboSuite.

The plaudits are well deserved. As Tech in Asia’s Charlie Custer wrote this morning:

WeiboSuite should prove an invaluable tool for China researchers and journalists who don’t speak Chinese but still want to keep track of what’s happening on China’s most happening social network. Obviously, with billions of posts, WeiboSuite hasn’t — and cannot — translate every single post into English, but it indexes and auto-translates the 1,000 most recent deleted posts, which makes it valuable for journalists who generally only need to see recent posts anyway. For example, when I searched for “Tibet,” WeiboSuite turned up an interesting post from yesterday alleging that there was a fairly major anti-government protest in Naqu Biru County in Tibet on Sunday.

There are, it should be noted, lots of NSFW posts, some of which would probably get deleted from, say, Facebook. But that’s the Internet for you. We trust you’re savvy enough to steer around that flotsam to find the gems that have been marooned for all the wrong reasons, namely politics.

On Friday, the Los Angeles Lakers’ torturous season suffered another calamity when star guard Kobe Bryant tore his Achilles tendon, ending one of his most impressive statistical seasons on a down note. Though the 34-year-old Bryant has his detractors, his work ethic and ability to battle through injuries are legendary, moving opposing fans and Lakers supporters alike to “#PrayForKobe” on Twitter.

Similarly, Kobe (or 科比, as Chinese folks know him) was a hot topic over the weekend on Chinese social media. Bryant is one of the most well-known athletes in the country, with his numerous ambassadorial efforts to China earning him an adoring following and leading some (okay, his financial advisor) to call him a “one-man State Department.” (If anyone can bring an end to the cyberwar between China and the United States, it’s Kobe: just listen to the crowd go insane each time he “scores” in this ridiculous Chinese celebrity game from last summer.)

The anguished wails were especially loud on Sina Weibo. On Saturday, 科比 and #科比恐跟腱撕裂# reached as high as #6 on Weibo’s trending topics list, just ahead of Psy and behind the Hong Kong Film Awards. Weibo also pitched in to spread awareness by displaying a banner ad — “Kobe suffers injury; possibly an Achilles tear” — on each member’s homepage, as if this were some national disaster which merited breaking news updates:

Weibo also set up a special Kobe-injury-related portal for users to post their thoughts and to wish Kobe a speedy recovery. However, a large group of mourners and well-wishers gathered directly on Kobe’s Weibo page. Despite only having posted 14 times since opening the account in February and only in English, Kobe has amassed over 11.7 million followers who leave comments in English as well as Chinese. On Saturday afternoon L.A. time (middle of the night Sunday in China), Kobe distributed his first post-injury weibo, an image of him prepping for surgery that he’d tweeted on Twitter earlier in the day. Within 24 hours, more than 45,000 comments were made and the photo was forwarded more than 70,000 times (though these numbers shouldn’t be treated as gospel; there’s a ton of comment spam and no doubt thousands of bot accounts re-posted it as well).

To get a sense of what people said in the comments, I ran a script that downloaded and parsed all 45,000-plus comments. I ran it through some language detection libraries, which indicated that nearly half the comments were written in English — an extremely high number compared to typical Weibo posts, an indication that perhaps the commenters hoped Kobe himself would actually read their messages. The “pray for Kobe” vibe was also strong on Weibo, with more than 1,842 comments containing the word “pray” and another 932 containing the phrase “God bless.” Other common phrases were “Come back soon” and “best wishes,” but of particular interest were comments that identified Kobe as a “hero” and credited him with inspiring them or introducing them to basketball:

• Thank you for teaching me to understand what the perseverance is . Thank you for giving a nice memory in my youth . Best wishes for you , my forever hero .
• Thank you for bringing me into the basketball world, so many years, I grew up with. Kobe Bryant, you are a hero, Achilles tendon rupture for you, nothing, everything will be the last, you’ll come back!
• Hey kobe,you are a realman in my mind,I see your games all the way.Because of you, I know NBA,because of you,I love this game betteryizhi.You make me know the importance of hardwork,you make me know such a strong will for winning.I will never be disappointed when I watch you game
• Kobe, I began to watch your game since you first entered the league, I began to love your game since your second year as a Laker. I followed your amazing career. I really hope that the world has the chance to see you holding that trophy yet another time. Be well, please!
• Although I was only 12 years old, but I see you play with dad when I was small, kobe Bryant, without you, my childhood is not perfect.
• I don’t like U, but U deserve everyone’s respect. U r the best of best in this kingdom, the star of stars in this ground. Thanks for all your big times, all your passion and fights for this game. I love this game, we shout “Beat LA”,as we can’t live without it ! Wish U come back!
• I don.t.watch basketball. i don.t know why so many people crazy about you.now i know why!you are their god and give them faith.you are the one who they want to be.you don,t forget smile and joke when suffer those.you never feel defeated.and i know you won,t.@KobeBryant
•  I know you’re a fighter, but take care of yourself at the same time. If ya injured we all will be sad . Remember there are billions of fans worried about ya including me. You’re a amazing, you’re the reason I started watching NBA, and you’re be the only reason why I stop.
• A GREAT MAN,I learned much from you,about insist、never give up、assiduous and so on,so I never give up,I learning hard       I don’t know how to express the respect to you!my English is poor,maybe there are some mistakes in this paragraph.waiting for you back next year!

Word cloud of common English words in Kobe’s Weibo comments (generated with wordle.net)

The Chinese-language messages which make up the other half are similarly sincere. Grief and encouragement abound, with 3,580 instances of “加油” (fight on), 2,011 of “早日康复” (get well soon), and 266 containing “伤心” (broken-hearted); and in the clearest expression of sadness, more than a 1,000 “蜡烛” (candles) emoji icons were lit. Again, the most fascinating comments are those which talk about Kobe as an inspiration and his effect on their upbringing:

• You are the only superstar athlete that I like. I don’t like basketball much, but I like watching Lakers games. When I was still young, my Dad told me you scored 81 points in a single game; from then on I thought that you were so good/handsome. You’ll be ok. (你是我唯一喜欢的一个球星了吧。我没有多喜欢篮球，可是我喜欢看湖人的球赛。在我还小的时候，我爸跟我说你单场就得了81分，我就觉得你好帅。会好的)
• My English isn’t good enough! I’m only able to use Chinese to express my heart’s feelings! Without your shadow on the basketball court I don’t know if I’ll be able to watch basketball games. Your injury really caused my heart to fill with worry. Yesterday, during your game, you tumbled again and again, you got up again and again, and when I saw your anxious expression I silently prayed and hoped that you’d would be fine, but … your performance really inspired people! Fight on!  My idol! We love you! (我英语不够好！我只能用中文发表一下心里的感受！篮球比赛场上没有你的身影我不知道我会不会继续看比赛我都不知道，你的受伤我心里真的揪心，昨天你的比赛一次次跌倒，一次次的爬起来，看着你那揪心的表情，心里默默祈祷希望你一切安好，但是……你的比赛真的让人鼓舞 ！加油！偶像！我们爱你！)
• Before long, a flying hero no longer able to fly, a Black Mamba unable to penetrate, when Kobe isn’t able to shoot as well, isn’t able to dominate and hit buzzer-beaters, when the former king of Los Angeles sits forlornly on the sidelines, we ought not forget, we ought to applaud him, give him our respect because he was with us throughout our youth. We can only shut up. Heroes are only temporary, but legends are for life! I love you master. Forever young!  (过不了多久，当飞侠不再飞翔，当黑曼巴步履瞒珊的艰难突破，当科比不再不讲理的投篮，不再霸气的绝杀，当昔日的洛城之王孤寂的坐在场边，不要忘记，给他掌声，给他尊重，因为他，陪我们度过青春。我们能做的只有闭嘴。英雄只是一时的，但传奇是一世的！爱你，老大，永远！)
• Iverson and Kobe, you’ll both be forever young in my heart. Iverson already retired long ago, and after Kobe retires I won’t be able to watch American basketball anymore. For many years I never cared about sports in this way. . . . When I have kids, no matter if they’re boys or girls, I’ll tell them the story the same way. . . (艾弗森和科比，是会永远在我心里了，艾弗森已经退很久了，等科比退了，我就不会再看美职蓝了。我从来无所谓这么多年看体育如此 . . . . 到我有了孩子，无论男孩女孩，我一样会讲述他们的故事. . .)

Reading through these incredibly earnest and heartfelt messages (you can go through all of them here in this spreadsheet I’ve uploaded), one is reminded of the huge impact Kobe has had on people who don’t speak his language and who have only ever connected with him through their computers or televisions. With these English comments — poor as some of them may be — and Chinese messages, they are expressing to their hero — and explaining to themselves — just how much Kobe means to them. Even for someone like me, who has never really been a Kobe fan, clicking through these messages warms my heart. Love him or hate him, Kobe is one of the few people able to move cynical Internet users around the world to tears and joy.

Jason Q. Ng blogs at Blocked on Weibo, and his book of the same name will be published this August. Follow him on Twitter @jasonqng.

This is interesting. Above, via the bitly blog, is a map showing relative social network usage in countries around the world. The more red a country is, the more clicks.

The coloration isn’t at all surprising, considering YouTube has been blocked in China since March 2009. What about Facebook?

Right, blocked since July 2009.

Twitter?

Hmm. Also blocked since July 2009.

It’s stunning to see it in such black and white — or red and blue, as it were — terms, isn’t it? We often say that pervasive censorship hinders both a country’s development as an economic state, attenuating creative spirit and impeding innovation, and its maturation as a peoples under a national banner. But how far behind is China? It has willfully cut itself off from the global marketplace of ideas, a self-embargo that continues to deal untold harm, effects of which we’ll all feel for decades.

But, hey, at least this country’s incubating ideas among itself:

And Weibo is looking strong (though we’re unclear whether this refers to Sina Weibo or all the weibos, including QQ and Sohu):

Another map of interest to lots of people here — particularly those who speculate every month that this site will be harmonized soon — Reddit:

The last thing to note is not much of a surprise: no one anywhere really uses Google+:

breakdown of traffic from social networks by country (bitly blog, h/t Alicia)

Check out the bottom message, posted on Sina Weibo just after 8:30 pm, according to SCMP. Pay especially close attention to the final sentence, bolded for emphasis:

“Apple plays so many tricks with their customer service? I feel hurt as an Apple fan. Have you done right by [Steve] Jobs? Have you done right by boys who sell their kidneys [to buy iphones], he asked, adding: “this is an example of big-name shops bullying customers. To publish around 8.20pm.”

We wonder how much CCTV paid him to do this. He has more than 5.4 million Sina Weibo followers, which means he’s particularly adept at spreading messages — even if they aren’t his.

Unsurprisingly, Ho (@herundong) has claimed he was hacked:

Now it’s me in person. Someone stole my Weibo account and posted the previous Weibo. Will someone tell me what’s going on? This is ridiculous!”

But that absolutely is stupid. He’s claiming that a third party hacked his Sina Weibo account and the best thing they thought of doing was ripping on Apple products while planting a clue that CCTV might have been involved?

Why didn’t Ho just say he wrote a reminder-to-self?

(Also, will someone tell him what’s going on?)

This is relevant because CCTV recently published an expose on consumer rights, and took the bold step of criticizing Apple. Met only lukewarmly, CCTV apparently has begun its own viral campaign to make it seem like the public is on their side. But netizens have sniffed it out. Ho’s claim to being hacked has been forwarded more than 100,000 times since he posted it on Friday night, and most of the 17,000 comments are critical of him.

Apple, for its part, hasn’t fashioned much of a response.

On Saturday morning, Apple also posted on Weibo, using the now famous #8.20# hashtag, a comparison of the different return policies of Apple, Samsung, Nokia and Lenovo phones. 

“You can tell the good from the bad easily,” its Weibo post said.

Attacking Apple backfires for CCTV (SCMP, h/t Steven W. )

In one his first Weibo posts, General Luo Yuan described social media as a critical “battleground” in modern society. As his first week on the service draws to a close, it seems that his comparison was spot on, though he appears to have misjudged the combatants.

His use of the service for bizarre and blatant self-aggrandizement was met with a quick and brutal response by critical Chinese netizens, as Offbeat China has observed. An ally account, Sina Military, came to Yuan’s defense by claiming he had been hacked, but this route of retreat was cut off with further criticism – netizens attacked the security practices of the famous general.

For the time being, it appears that Luo Yuan has retreated to the safety of rhetoric. Most of his recent posts have dealt with national defense issues, most notably the Diaoyu Island conflict. It seems, however, that his penchant for self-promotion might remain, albeit in more muted fashion. Here’s a recent post detailing strategic policy concerning the disputed islands:

《A Few Points Regarding the Protection of National Ocean Rights》（Proposals already adopted) First, to establish “National Oceans Day,” to strengthen all peoples’ awareness of oceans. Secondly, to make clear the “Six Existences” (Administration, Legality, National Defense, Law Enforcement, Economic Interests, and Public Opinion) for practical defense of sea rights. Thirdly, to accelerate naval modernization efforts. Fourth, to found a “National Sea Committee,” to facilitate the formulation of 《PRC Sea Strategy》.

The “Six Existences” theory serves as an excellent example of the delightfully vague CCP slogans so prevalent in Chinese politics. It also appears to have been invented by Luo Yuan himself in direct reference to the Diaoyu Island conflict, and has been propagated through his writings since mid-summer 2012.

It’s difficult to extrapolate from passing references such as these, but it seems clear that Luo Yuan continues to love the limelight, and remains extremely confident of his own ideas. The General continues to log daily activity on the microblog, and is sure to keep the world up to date with his next big idea. We’ll be sure to pass it along.

“The mighty women of Chengdu, ‘raping’ a man on the street,” reads the opening to this Sina Weibo post. With all the usual disclaimers that this is hearsay, let us continue:

Saw a ferocious woman at Jiuyan Bridge. I reckon she drank too much! After pinning down a man on the side of the street, she took off her pants and ferociously mounted him. The man even resisted at the start! Finally, he yielded to the woman’s raping and blushed as he picked up his underwear and walked off! The woman picked up her pants and crossed the street along Jiuyan Bridge.. numerous male netizens on Weibo have claimed they want to go to Chengdu and wait~~

People say the women of Chengdu are spicy — lameizi. This is kind of what they mean, writ extra large.

(H/T @MissXQ)

What do former Taiwan premier Frank Hsieh Chang-Ting, former Google president Kai-Fu Lee, and human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang have in common?

Within the last three weeks, each of them has seen his Sina Weibo account suspended. In Lee’s case, he was slapped with a three-day ban. In Hsieh’s case, his account was completely trashed. And Pu? He can’t do anything on any Chinese microblog — not Sina’s, Tencent’s, or Sohu’s.

What’s going on here? SCMP tries to get to the bottom of it. First, Pu:

In his posts, which were widely commented on and reposted, Pu said (recently retired security tsar) Zhou (Yongkang) had “wrecked a country, ruined the people”. The posts were soon deleted.

That happened on February 8, on an unspecified account. He tried to open a Sina Weibo account the next day, which lasted four days before being deleted. On February 14, he tried again, and this time his account survived all of four hours.

Pu said the suspension of his microblogs might have been due to his criticism of Zhou. In his post, Pu said too many human tragedies had been directly attributed to Zhou’s policies and his stability-maintenance apparatus. “Stability maintenance is the worst evil for instability in China,” he wrote.

We’ll repeat something we’ve said before: in China, you can talk about anything as long as you don’t offend the wrong people or speak too loudly about the truth.

In former Taiwan premier Hsieh’s case, his account, a mere 24 hours after verification, was deleted on February 20. Perhaps a supervisor recognized his name and realized Hsieh was trouble. SCMP again:

“It must have been the superiors of Sina, such as propaganda authorities, who issued the order [to delete Hsieh’s account],” said two Beijing-based senior online editors, who asked that their names not be used.

They said that it was impossible for Sina to make Hsieh a VIP user without approval from the Taiwan Affairs Office.

“But if the state-level propaganda department does not like Hsieh’s posts, they can ask Sina to delete his account,” they added.

Most confusing of all is the suspension of China Google’s ex-president, Lee. On February 17 he tweeted: “I am silenced on Sina and Tencent [Weibos] for three days, so everyone can find me here.”

Netizens have, as you might expect, mostly rallied to these three men’s causes. Freedom of speech may be a progressive, even radical idea, but many here still aspire for it.

They’re bound to be disappointed.

“Freedom of speech is not about the freedom to criticise powerful officials, but about whether you will lose this freedom after having criticised them,” Hsieh explained in a post uploaded on Wednesday.

We should amend Hsieh’s statement for China. It’s not about whether you will lose this freedom, but how long it’ll take. Not very long.

(H/T Alicia)

We’re not sure when this happened, but the Black Mamba joined Sina Weibo. He hasn’t posted a thing, but more than 160,000 people are anxiously awiting that first message (that number of followers is rapidly increasing, by the way).

The last time Kobe Bryant was in China, he did ridiculous things like score 68 points in 15 minutes of a glorified pickup game. People here have also been comparing him to Michael Jordan for as long as I can remember, so yeah, he’s popular. We all eagerly await his first post, and hope his sojourn on China’s Twitter lasts longer than Brad Pitt’s.

(H/T Shanghaiist)

UPDATE, 10:47 am: Associated Press is on the case:

Bryant is widely known and extremely popular in China. The Los Angeles Lakers star has several fan pages on Sina Weibo.

One of them — “Home of Kobe” — has more than 200,000 followers. Along with other sites, it posted a welcome message for Bryant and encouraged fans to leave comments for him by promising to help translate some of the remarks.

Less than a week after outing himself as the microblogger behind the super popular “Study Xi Fan Club,” migrant worker and college dropout Zhang Hongming may be calling it quits. According to SCMP:

Zhang, who has more than 800,000 followers, wrote: “Goodbye. I was happy when I came here, but I’m leaving today with deep feelings … Thanks to all the fans [of Xi], perhaps there is no room for us due to limited public understanding, or perhaps there is no room for us in the real world.

“I feel remorse and regret for disturbing them due to the existence of the Fan Club of Learning From Xi.” He did not explain who he meant by “them”.

Here was his message:

Speculation is rampant as to what’s happening. Could officials be worried about an eventual cyber betrayal? Zhang wouldn’t be the first person to win government support before losing it. Is Zhang burned out? Is he actually a state insider now in trouble for talking to foreign media?

One popular internet commentator wrote: “Obviously he was not silenced, but rather was advised to quit. Perhaps only he himself knows where the pressure came from.”

Only he knows for now. It’s always sad to see a good blog go down, but the site is still active as we speak, so maybe it’ll last a bit longer yet. Hopefully we get a fuller story later.

Xi’s top fan calls it quits on blog site after coming clean (SCMP)