This weekend I went out in a happy socializing mood and inevitably, the question popped up
“What do you do in China?”
It’s funny how most people ask you “in China” as if what you do is only relevant as long as you do it here…Anyway I gave my usual and vague answer ” I work in the Web”.
The girl opened her eyes wide and said
“Can you ask them to bring back Facebook?”
Well, sure. As a matter of fact, I am on my way to a little chat with the Politic Bureau see if I can pull some strings and ask them “C’mon, you know, we just want to update our status”.
Since Facebook was banned early in July this year, only 14 000 out of the 1 million monthly active users remain according to Facebook Global Monitor. The report does not mention the impact this has on us, survivors :
x We can’t randomly update status, tag/comment anymore to remind people on the other side of the world we still exist.
x We can’t upload party pictures to prove our relatives we are having so much fun away from them.
x Now we have to ask people what’s new in their life instead of just checking their profile.
x I can’t know what city should I live in or what would be my ghetto name anymore – this probably increased the productivity of foreign staff working in China.
x Most seriously lots of businesses like restaurants, clubs and hotels were using it to promote their events. How do they do now?
The web 2.0 situation is frustrating here : I can’t say how many times a day I come accross a blog or a website, an author and the guy is like “follow me on Twitter” “add me on Facebook” and I feel like a loser uninvited to parties – something I never felt of course in the real life.
Or maybe it is blocked
But why is Facebook banned in China?
x Insight 1 : Politics
As a group supporting political activism in Xinjiang appeared on Facebook, the government took sanction against the social network. According to article, Chinese netizens “agreed that Facebook should be punished for that” – nationalism is indeed very strong among Chinese Y generation.
What could have been done is ask Facebook to block such groups in China, just like Google was asked to filter results if it wanted to enter the market – but Google generates money as Facebook still struggle to find a long term viable business model so that leads me to :
x Insight 2 : Politics + Economic
What is the risk for a particpative foreign media/website/business with a popular concept in China ?
They are most probably very welcomed at first, then copied before being banned or blocked. They educate the market before their audience goes to local competitors who do it a lot better because of their better understanding and sometimes the support of the government.
As major foreign players cannot really play without China, they all expose themselves and face the same issue : Yahoo vs Alibaba, Ebay vs Taobao, Google vs Baidu…
This applies to all online models except micro-blogging which is not welcomed no matter what as we’ve seen with the blocking of popular micro blogging site Fanfou (back to theory #1). So basically in this counter-creative environment, foreign models are just used to leverage local ones.
What to do? For companies, I’d just say : Who might benefit from the crime? That’s your Achille tendon. Make sure you work with people, Chinese and foreigners, who have experience and a deep understanding of both the country and market. The human factor is the key.
What about you, lonely foreigner facing the Great Firewall ? Get a VPN. Move. Or stop complaining about it.
Peace x
Sources
