Post 4 : Embarrassing Situation of Social Media

In the lecture, a essay about ‘The Social Networking Problem’ is shared.

In the essay, point out that:

-Many media was blocked by Great Firewall of china

-People are hired to scan of web content for sensitive word daily.

Social Media … in point of view of government

From of list of sites blocked by government, we could see till now, Facebook, Twitter, Blogspot those famous and common social media is still blocking by the Chinese government, to limit the information access by people.

This is an Taboo or hidden rule in Chinese society, that you cannot speak some sensitive words in Mainland. Not to offend any people, with certain limit of freedom speech for Netizens in Mainland.

However, government could not ignore the huge number of china’s Netizens, that is active users in China Locals Social Media, like Weibo.

In the contrary, many local government had launched the officials blogs, to listen (or let you feel like listen) of peoples need on local affairs and to adopt social media as official channels in government

This is one way for local government to make information more transparent to public, to enforce one the nation policy of ‘Promoting Social Harmony’ listed in of the Work Report of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee 2012.

Of course we will never know are those blogs had already filtered ‘clean message’, however, this show that the government realize the power of social networking tools

This show that Social Media is still a double-edged sword to Chinese government.

Social Media … in point of view of individuals

Chinese social media goes to a strange direction in terms of individual's self-promotion.Making PR stunts to get itself become well-known. 

Sister Furong芙蓉姐 demonstrate how to become famous , or infamous by using the advantage of social media.

Social Media … in point of view of company’s

By taking advantage of critical nature of China’s Netizens, that is ‘Many’ and ‘Active’, many solid case demonstrated that company could easily take advantage of social media, from recommendations, commercial market,etc.


Social Media is do a double-edged sword to Chinese government, but do simply control the content of social media, could withstand the strong will of freedom of China's Netizens, especially for next generation?


I believe, Human cannot stop the trend of reformation, so do the government officials.