Chinese Internet Forums: Online Communities Speaking Their Minds
Like most countries in the world, the internet has taken China by storm, and is a staple part of every day life for most city dwellers.
These days you don’t even need to be sat at a computer connected to a wall to access your favorite websites, you can connect wherever you are and whenever you want. People can check their emails on the train, walking down the street or whilst sipping on a coffee at their local cafe. And with the majority of new telecommunication devices coming out of China and the rest of Asia, the Chinese are as well connected as any other country in the world.
It has been well-reported around the world that the government of the People’s Republic of China has strict laws on what can be posted and said on the internet in and from China. The country has over 30,000 ‘internet police’ that patrol many of the Chinese internet forums, chat rooms, and blogs for any negative comments made about the country or government and are erased within minutes.
Despite this censorship, internet forums are still a popular destination for Chinese web surfers, and cover every imaginable topic. An internet forum can be defined as an online message board where people can discuss topics of interest to them. There are different forums for different topics, some of which are very specific, and others that are very general.
Whilst in many countries it is compulsory to register with the site before you can comment in the forum, in China and other parts of Asia it is more commonly optional and they sometimes actually encourage anonymity. To verify a person they can use an advanced tripcode system that eliminates the need for a formal registration.
China has one of the largest population of internet forum users, and millions log on to read or comment on the latest forums.
Many people head to internet forums in China because of the tight censorship the Chinese government has over the media, and what news is broadcast. Although the internet is censored, a lot more information can be found there and not all of it is found by the internet police. People can air their opinions on the internet anonymously, whereas they can not do this normally in real life.
One of the disadvantages to internet forums in China is that many people make sweeping statements and tell half-truths that can lead to gossip and can often sway public opinion about an issue despite being untrue.
Many Chinese companies employ people to pose as ’normal people’ and write favorable comments about their business and products on internet forums to boost sales and product image.
One of the most popular and successful internet forums in China is Tianya Club. Founded in February 1999, this site has been used by politicians to campaign during elections and to answer questions from constituents. As well as this, it has been involved in many breaking Chinese news stories such as the revival of the 1995 poisoning story at Tsinghua University.
Whilst countries such as the USA don’t have many large national forums, the majority of China’s successful forums are very large, although there are still several hundred smaller independent ones that are popular.
Many people in China, and across the world, are even using internet forums to meet potential partners. It is becoming less and less unusual for couples to have met online, and forums provide a great facility for them to do this. In China, one of the most popular sites focused on finding romance is Pie Love set up by the famous Shuimu Tsinghua BBS (SMTH) run by students from Tsinghua University. SMTH has over six million readers a day, and some of the top 10 forum topics receive more views than the headlines of the New York Times!
Three other top internet forums in China include: Club Sohu, NetEase BBS, and Strong Nation Forum.
The latter, Strong Nation Forum is the bulletin site of the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China. The aim of the forum is to discuss how to make China a stronger nation. It is surprisingly unbiased, with a lot of criticisms against the government being left uncensored. Despite this, after the death of Zhao Ziyang in January 2007, the moderators deleted the thousands of condolence messages off of the site in fear that it might cause civil unrest.
Many of the forums in China are written in Chinese, so unfortunately are not very accessible to foreigners who have no knowledge of their language. Despite this, if you search around enough there are several English Chinese forums, although these tend not to have as good or interesting information, and the posts are less frequent.
