The second item to hit the news sites following the September 2014 protests in Hong Kong was not further details on the Hong Kong desire for universal suffrage and the right to select who they can vote for, but a news story that Instagram was now blocked in mainland China. That goes some way towards the perception that we all have in the west about China and social media as a whole.
When I first started to write about social media usage in China, my blog started
“I’m sitting behind the Great Wall as I write this. I’ll share the view with you later, but it’s not actually THAT Wall I’m talking about. It’s the great firewall. Yes, I’m in China, land of vast panoramas, amazing food choices, a self-starting populace and net surveillance and control.”
Of course I could apply that last description to the USA too, I’m sure Edward Snowden would agree and have something to add, it seems the more I travel and the more different everything is, the more it is the same.
I decided that writing about the Great Wall from behind it was probably not a good idea, being that I wanted back into the country for the second entry of my thirty day visa and as China is reputed to have a massive TWO MILLION people in its Internet Police Force, I waited.
So, now as I’ve spent 60 days behind the Great Wall, enjoyed the hospitality of many regions of China and suffered the tragedy that is public Internet access while traveling on a budget, let me share with you what I’ve learned about China, its people and the use of not just social media, but electronic communications. You may be surprised.
At the end of August 2014, 618 million (at the end of 2013 the population of the USA was 317 million!) – Or 45% of the 1.36 billion Chinese population had Internet access, putting them well down in the global stakes, but higher, no doubt than many of us thought. More than 53% of China’s population lives in urban centers with Beijing (75%), Shanghai (71%) and Guangdong (66%) having the highest Internet penetration of the country’s administrative regions.
The average Internet user spends 25 hours a week connected and 81% of Internet connected users are connected (also) via mobile Internet, however, when it comes to mobile subscriptions, 91% of the population have one. Baidu is THE most popular search engine, with 98% of the 490 million search engine users using this engine. Google came in with a respectable 39% of users, but that was before the May 2014 ban on its use.
I recall, not long after I started working with Actiance (then FaceTime Communications) in 2006, commenting in presentations about the use of Instant Messaging (IM) use in China and it’s still the most popular online activity in China, with 81% of connected users citing IM as the number one reason to access the Internet. There are 530 million active IM users across platforms. However, QQ, from Tencent (which I oft quoted as “also encrypted, just like Skype”) claims more than 800 million ACTIVE accounts, suggesting the use of multiple accounts.
Regulation, Legislation, Electronic Communications and China
It was 1994 before the Internet arrived in China and the central government of China started its Internet censorship with three regulations. The first regulation, “the Temporary Regulation for the Management of Computer Information Network International Connection” was announced on 1 February 1996, and updated again on 20 May 1997. All Internet service providers must be licensed and go through ChinaNet, GBNet, CERNET or CSTNET, said the regulation. The second regulation was issued on 18 February 1994 and gave Internet security protection to the Ministry of Public Security.
December 1997 saw security management procedures in Internet Accessing issued. This defined harmful information and activities with regard to internet usage and what is and is not allowed. Content restrictions came in September 2000, putting into place rules for approvals on overseas news story links and who had the authority to deliver news online.
China believes that it has a right to censor the Internet, as it has the right to govern it’s usage by its own rules within its borders. In a white paper released in June 2010, the government gives reasons as to why they do this. They want, they say to restrict the harmful effects of illegal information on public interests, national security and children. “Laws and regulations clearly prohibit the spread of information that contains content subverting state power, undermining national unity [or] infringing upon national honor and interests,” says the paper. It continues “Within Chinese territory the internet is under the jurisdiction of Chinese sovereignty. The internet sovereignty of China should be respected and protected,” it says. It adds that foreign individuals and firms can use the internet in China, but they must abide by the country’s laws.
China’s constitution provides for freedom of speech and the press, but media regulations allow authorities to shut down stories claiming that state secrets are being exposed. The law on the Guarding of State Secrets was revised in April 2010 with a strengthened requirement for Internet companies and Telco operators to cooperate with Chinese authorities when it comes to investigations into leaks of state secrets.
Since 2001 Chinese activists have been arrested for violating these laws, recently, in mid-2013 it was announced that hundreds of people had been arrested for spreading false rumors online – the crackdown, stated the Chinese authorities was directed at fraud and slander. It was September 2013 before we saw China’s highest court issue guidelines defining and outlining penalties for the punishment of online rumors and slander. While providing some protection for citizens who accuse officials of corruption, a slanderous message that is forwarded more than 500 times, or read more than 5,000 times could result in three years imprisonment.
Most recently, in March 2014, the WeChat application had prominent, politically liberal accounts deleted, with additional regulations issued on “instant messaging tools”. These new restrictions were instituted to ” help build a clean cyberspace” and to safeguard national security – the rules apply to users with accounts that let them broadcast messages on chat applications such as Tencent’s WeChat and Laiwang from Alibaba. The new rules also require that public account holders must register with their real name and must sign an agreement that they will “abide by laws and regulations, the socialist system, national interests, the legitimate rights and interests of citizens, public order, social morality and ensure the authenticity of information that they provide” (sounds kind of similar to recent legislation that came into play in Russia eh?)
In the light of what’s happening in Hong Kong right now it will be an interesting exercise to track the impact that this new law has on mainlander’s interest in the protests.
Mobile Usage is Booming in China
By June of this year, those accessing the Internet through a mobile device in China had exceeded 520 million, with more than 60% of China’s mobile internet users using mobile social applications. 90% use these applications every day, with the peak usage time between 8pm and 11pm, oh and at lunchtime, between 12pm and 1pm – in the country that despite being 1900 kilometers east to west has a single time zone (which I must admit, after the hassles of Russian trains, makes catching a train across the country a heck of a lot easier!).
There’s a lot of growth here in mobile possible too. China has 1.24 billion active mobile subscriptions, that’s 91% penetration, although only 640,000,000 are unique individuals, so multiple subscriptions are most definitely in play here, but only 34% of them have a 3G (or faster) internet connection, this grew 19% in 2013.
(MORE ON MOBILE?)
Social Media in China does NOT mean Facebook.
QZone claims to have the highest number of active social networking users with 625 million – as a comparison, that is 50% of Facebook’s global total monthly active users. WeChat and Weibo are currently media favorites with 355 million and 129 million active monthly users respectively. WeChat’s 355 million active monthly users compares to 79% of WhatsApp user numbers globally. China is a BIG market.
Social media users share the love, with 37% of users using a combination of Weibo, WeChat and other social networking platforms
When it comes to brands, they’re pretty active on Sina’s Weibo, which reported advertising revenues of US $56million in Q4, 2013 alone – this representing a 153% year on year growth. The average Chinese internet user follows eight brands, and 38% of internet users make shopping choices based on recommendations they read on social networks.
Professional and Business Networking
Want to see some names you recognise? In China, Facebook has 820,000 users, LinkedIn 4 million, eclipsed by Daijie (24 million) and Tianji (18 million) business networking sites used in China.
Focused on University student recruitment, and started in April 2009, Dajie then expanded to encompass Chinese white collar workers and indeed this reflects in the fact that 68% of users of Dajie have a Bachelors degree or higher.
In a move to increase business usage, Wechat recently announced the beta availability of business accounts, providing business contacts management, tags, transfers of files and documents, secured messaging (where only the recipient can read the message with forwarding and screen capture disabled – how many times would you have wanted that??). Additionally a Wechat open API allows for the creation of custom business applications. Early adopters of these business accounts include China Mobile, Häagen-Dazs, China Eastern Airlines. Card payment features and an advertising platform round out the business offering.
Linking Social, Messaging and eCommerce
Most Chinese social media users shop online at least three times a month. During a 14 days’ promotion on Weibo, a total of over 60 thousand cars were ordered with a total worth of over RMB9.2 billion (US$1.5 billion).
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge also went viral in China, it was just happening on Weibo, with more than 2 million Weibo posts published with over 2 billion views on the topic.
Yes. That’s TWO BILLION views.
Many say that organizations such as Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba have had the success that they have because of the closed community that exists within China, and that the closure to western applications has created an environment for success that would not have existed if the barrier wasn’t there. What can’t be disputed is the size of the market and the growth potential for mobile access, social sharing and commerce.
China is a fascinating society with many facets that as westerners we may find quirky, but with a current Internet population that is currently twice the size of the population of the USA, we may find that the needs of the Chinese people when it comes to internet, social and commerce find greater dominance in software and organizations wishing to tap the potential of this vast market.
Guest blogger, social media guru, and citizen of the world Sarah Carter regulary shares her nomadic travel experiences and social insights here with our blog audience. To learn more about Sarah and her exciting travels, follow @sarahlcarter on Twitter.
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