https://restofworld.org/2022/china-censors-social-network-douban/
"The chaotic Chinese social network Douban never looked for fame; it was
designed for people with niche obsessions and an urge to talk about them. It
was founded in Beijing in 2005, the same year that two University of Virginia
roommates were busily coding the system that would become Reddit, a year before
Jack Dorsey would launch a little-known microblogging service, “twttr.”
Douban began as a review site for books, film, and music: the interests of its
charismatic founder, Ah Bei. It quickly grew into a social network of millions
of users. The site’s bulletin board system accelerated into an unpredictable,
ever-expanding space for gossipy discussions on everything from life advice —
gay dating, dealing with gaslighting parents — to wild eccentricities, like a
page where users talk as if they were ants or mushrooms. And while its Chinese
and global rivals chased ad-driven monetization, Douban shrugged off
profit-making and propaganda, instead playing for survival on the fringes of
the Chinese internet.
“The company is run by a group of idealistic tech workers. That’s extremely
rare in an age when traffic numbers mean everything,” said Oscar Zhou, a media
studies lecturer with the University of Hertfordshire who has studied Douban
communities.
Against the odds, Douban has survived for 17 years. But its users’ time there
appears to be running out. In March, a government censorship task force was set
up at the company’s headquarters. Over the past year, some of its most popular
groups have shut down, its app was scrubbed from major Chinese stores, and on
April 14, Douban froze a significant traffic driver, the gossip forum Goose
Group, though it’s unclear whether each of those actions were the decisions of
the website or government regulators.
As China’s tech crackdown seeps into all parts of online life, the ability to
organize around something as mild as shared interests is being throttled by
Beijing’s censors. Rest of World spoke to more than a dozen early Douban
employees, prominent group admins, and current users, most of whom requested
anonymity in order to freely discuss Chinese censorship. For them, the
reining-in of Douban signals that its creative, tight-knit communities have
become an unacceptable political risk, as the Chinese government grows
increasingly vigilant about any form of civil gathering."
Via Wayne Radinsky and Christoph S.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
