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"Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all. How do we define this lively darting about with words, of hitting them back and forth, this sort of brief smile of ideas which should be conversation?" ~ Guy de Maupassant ~

Friday, October 21, 2005

How China is Changing the Internet - Rebecca Mackinnon

Rebecca MacKinnon who runs Global Voices Online is on, talking about "China and the Internet - The change goes both ways ...". She tells a story about a village of about 150 peasants has a website - http://www.pusalu.com/ - started small as an alerts sort of site (UFO sightings for eg) and has now evolved to a community portal which actually has changed the world for the community there with vocational guidance and involvement from the community. This is one example that reflects how important the internet is to the Chinese Government, in bringing about change in rural areas.

Lots of examples of Chinese folk moving to the internet - Muzimei's blog where she discusses her sex life, Super Girl Li Yichun - selected by fans to win a contest, Yang Chengang who stuck his first song on the internet - "I love you just like Mice Love Rice" - and has become a heartthrob, with no official 'gatekeepers' interfering.

Result - more empowerment in China as a result. The world's second largest Internet user base. 10% global PC demand, 15% global handset demand are in China. More than 5 mn blogs, over a fifth Chinese internet users use internet bulletin boards, over 200 billion SMS's sent in 2005.

Proliferation of Chinese content on the internet is driving growth throughout the world, despite a crackdown by the govt, where bloggers are supposed to register with the government. It's a contradiction of sorts - it's to do with understanding the censorship culture in China. They don't clamp down on sex bloggers and mp3 stars, but on political commentary and emergent leadership. Keywords are blocked - Tiananmen Massacre for instance is blocked on Google. Blog service providers have to provide censorship for bloggers. Soft censorship.

The Chinese internet community isn't just keeping up with what's happening in the USA. It is innovating. And leading changes. egs. Mobile Blogs, Podcasting etc. These companies are able to be agile and innovate because they are building censorship into their platforms.

Concluding thoughts and questions :
  • "Code is Law" - Larry Lessig.
  • As software codes are being written in China - what implications on Western business models, what implications on freedom of speech in other countries.?
  • Can we prevent censorship from being baked into the model and code?
A really thought-provoking presentation from Rebecca.

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Copyright 2006 Dina Mehta

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