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A better example than dedicated social media apps is perhaps Baike, commonly described as China's Wikipedia. Except it isn't, because it's not a non-profit orga
by alisonatwork 3y ago
A better example than dedicated social media apps is perhaps Baike, commonly described as China's Wikipedia. Except it isn't, because it's not a non-profit organization with a mission to provide free and unbiased information to the world, it's a locked-down product of Baidu, one of China's major tech companies who once upon a time (much like Google) owned domestic search and maps, who also run Tieba (something like Reddit) and so on. This is the biggest difference I find on the "chinanet" - all of the top sites are owned by one of the major tech companies, and all of these companies have an interest in trying to keep you inside their ecosystem.
Outside of the chinanet this also happens, where Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft all try to keep you inside their ecosystems (to say nothing of the traditional media companies like Disney, WBD etc), but outside the chinanet there remains a small but influential "information wants to be free" movement that is unaligned with any government or corporation. So we have Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap and the Internet Archive... It's not much, but it's something.
From my perspective if people really want to see a free and open internet, where information is never hidden in gated communities, the only choice is to support non-profits with aligned missions. Then people all over the world - including China - can contribute.
- porphyra 3y agoGod I wish Wikipedia wasn't banned by the Great Firewall. It's kinda sad that stuff like Caltrain electrification, for example, has a huge and well-researched article despite not even being in service yet, just because of the large amount of Wikipedians in the Bay Area where the Wikimedia Foundation is headquartered. In the meanwhile, entire operational train systems both in China and elsewhere in the world that have vastly greater ridership, longer length, more advanced technology, etc, get nary a mention. I have nothing against Caltrain electrification getting a great article since I'm an inclusionist but it is just sad how little of the cool things, especially in China, are on Wikipedia.
- yorwba 3y agoEven with the Great Firewall, Chinese Wikipedia is the eighth largest by number of edits, daily views, and active users: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias/Table2 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias/Table2 Chinese topics are usually well-covered on the Chinese Wikipedia, the lack of an English-language article is more likely to be attributable to a shortage of English-Chinese bilinguals translating that information. Do you have some particular train system in mind?
- porphyra 3y agoChinese Wikipedia is mostly made by Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas Chinese people so they often are not as comprehensive for recent developments in the mainland.