Weekly Scroll: Big Brother is watching

CCP Influencers, Reddit vs Microsoft, and a pole vault gone wrong

Influencing Under Big Brother

I often mention on this blog that I’m fascinated by the Chinese internet, which is very different than our own. I want to understand how it operates, take it apart and put it back together, and generally see if the underlying social dynamics work the same way as everywhere else.

How is China’s system different? Hundreds of ways, but some of the big ones: Its citizens have a more robust mobile payments system than virtually anywhere else in the world. They use different apps than the rest of us (and it’s almost all apps - web traffic via traditional browsers is marginal in China). And they exist under a much more totalitarian censorship regime, which produces some odd dynamics.

The obvious fact about censorship is that people can’t criticize the government or the CCP much. But the less obvious implication is that even when someone praises the government, they still might get slapped down if they praise them for the wrong thing.

A great section on Chinese nationalist influencers in China Brief this week: