Weibo - What Do You Know About It?

If you've recently downloaded the latest version in the series of “Angry Birds” games, ‘Angry Birds: Space’, then you may have noticed that during the level select stage, there is an option to share on Facebook & Twitter, but there is also a new option – to share on Weibo.

I'd never heard of this site before and, after some research, it's likely that you haven't either if you're reading this from anywhere other than China. I found that Weibo is in fact a Chinese Micro-blogging website, similar to Twitter. However, the only language it's available in at the moment is Chinese, though if you were to visit the site and use Google's “translate” feature, you'd see a very poorly translated English version:

 So why has the creator of Angry Birds, Rovio, bothered including an option for English speaking people to share on a Chinese website? Well, to understand that, you'll need to know a little more about Weibo.

History

A basic version of Sina Weibo, otherwise known as simply “Weibo” (微博) was launched by SINA Corporation on 14 August 2009 after Sina's CEO saw an opportunity after websites such as Facebook & Twitter had been blocked in China following the Ürümqi riots in July 2009.

The basic functions of this new site only included messages, private messages, comment and repost where possible, but was so successful that the site continued to expand, and, as of February 2012, had more than 300 million users. It also has plans to launch an English version of Sina Weibo, to grow worldwide, however the contents will still be controlled by Chinese law.

Like Twitter, Weibo uses many of the same features, such as users only updating posts with a 140 character limit, and talking to other users using the “@UserName” format.. However, unlike Twitter, unregistered users can only browse a few posts by verified members (normally verified users are, like on Twitter, famous people who have proven their identity), and cannot see ANY posts by unverified members including those sent to verified members. Also unlike Twitter, Weibo is moderated.

So, although this seems like a nice idea in theory, the site will still have to abide and be controlled by Chinese laws in which users are not allowed freedom of speech. Weibo and many websites like it in China are heavily monitored as the internet has been censored in China, and has the largest recorded number of imprisoned journalists and cyber-dissidents in the world. It is rumoured that there are over 30,000 members belonging to secret policing organisations to not only monitor and block website content, but also monitor the internet access of individuals. The following is a list of rules for anyone (including tourists) wishing to access the internet in China to follow:

“No unit or individual may use the Internet to create, replicate, retrieve, or transmit the following kinds of information:

1. Inciting to resist or breaking the Constitution or laws or the implementation of administrative regulations;
2. Inciting to overthrow the government or the socialist system;
3. Inciting division of the country, harming national unification;
4. Inciting hatred or discrimination among nationalities or harming the unity of the nationalities;
5. Making falsehoods or distorting the truth, spreading rumours, destroying the order of society;
6. Promoting feudal superstitions, sexually suggestive material, gambling, violence, murder;
7. Terrorism or inciting others to criminal activity; openly insulting other people or distorting the truth to slander people;
8. Injuring the reputation of state organizations;
9. Other activities against the Constitution, laws or administrative regulations.”

- Wikipedia

For these reasons, I'm not sure whether or not opening a Weibo site for English users would necessarily be a good idea, or even take off in Western countries such as the UK, since people generally don't like being told what they can/can't post in their “private” online space. The majority of my Facebook & Twitter feeds are regularly full of quite a few things on the above list, and if users were forced to comply with Chinese law on a moderated site I'm not sure if disobeying the rules would end up resulting in legal consequences.

Thanks for reading, I think maybe we'll just have to wait and see what happens with this site, but i'd love to know your thoughts on this too!

@Lizmundo

Lizmundo's Research Into Kids' Websites: Club Penguin

Me again! Today I've been looking into the Club Penguin site from Disney which is aimed at 6-14 year olds, although any age can join.

“Club Penguin is a snow-covered, virtual world where children play games and interact with friends in the guise of colourful penguin avatars. “ - Club Penguin Website.

The main features of the Club Penguin site are similar to that of other childrens' sites such as Moshi Monsters in the sense that users can create an avatar to walk around the virtual world and communicate with others. One of the differences I noticed with Club Penguin was that they offer a “standard safe chat” and an “ultimate safe chat”. Ultimate chat prevents users from engaging in ANY chat with other players apart from sending set phrases and emoticons to each other. As well as these two options, the site also filters messages to prevent telephone numbers & other personal info from being revealed to other players. However users can add each other to their friends lists and send private messages. I'm unsure If the private messages are filtered too but after some searching around online – apparently they are, although there has been an odd occasion when the filter system has been down and players have then gone on to swear at eachother just for the sake of it.

The only downside to these safety features are when they backfire. I found out from this page: http://leladavidson.hubpages.com/hub/All_About_Kids_Website_Club_Penguin and the comments left from young players of Club Penguin that they have worked their way around the filters, and have learnt how to create their own “games” (some with more adult themes) within Club Penguin, such as having babies with other penguins, entering “slip” (strip) clubs etc. Although these things are banned within the game, the majority of the players seem to know about these things and have also created codes to “swear” e.g. “beach” is supposed to mean b*tch and so on. Using codes like this makes it hard for the moderators to moderate the chat as players aren't technically breaking the rules.

Maybe the reason why players are creating games like this within the world is due to the filter being so strict within Club Penguin in the first place that kids feel they have to come up with other ways to feel grown up? The sad thing about this is, kids are growing up before their years and moving on from sites like Club Penguin onto older social networking sites where they don't have such strict rules (allbeit they may have to lie about their age to get on them!)

Thanks for still coming back to read my posts & please let me know if there are any websites for kids/tweens or teens you'd like me to review!

@Lizmundo

Club Penguin's playable characters