Social Media in China
Chinese Internet users are actively engaging in social media—especially home-grown social media platforms. Domestic social media platforms differ in various ways from Western platforms.
Rather than eliminate social media, restrictions on foreign websites and social media have resulted in a flourishing home-grown, state-approved ecosystem in which Chinese-owned properties thrive. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are blocked in China, but their Chinese equivalents are expanding. The equivalent of Twitter in China is Sina Weibo (www.sina.com.cn), and the two equivalents of YouTube are Tudou and Youku (www.tudou.com and www.youku.com, respectively).
Twitter vs. Sina Weibo
Sina Weibo, widely viewed as the country’s leading microblog, has seen user activity levels stall while Tencent Weibo, its main challenger, appears to be catching up. Qzone, a social network run by Tencent, is also thriving – measured by both ‘sharing’ applications and clickrates. Renren and Kaixin, China’s two Facebook equivalents, are neck and neck in user activity, but far behind the microblogs.
Similar to Twitter, Sina Weibo allows users to post 140-character messages, and users can follow friends and find interesting comments posted by others. Small but important differences in the platform have made some say it is a Twitter clone, but better. For example, unlike Twitter, Sina Weibo allows users to post videos and photos, comment on other people’s updates, and easily add comments when re-posting a friend’s message.
Source: http://www.thomascrampton.com/china/social-media-china
October 6th, 2020 at 11:32 pm
A lot has changed for the past years, we’ve updated a new article on social media in China in 2020, feel free to check it out! https://pandabuddy.net/social-media-in-china/