2014/07/22
【聯合報╱By IAN JOHNSON╱陳世欽譯】
In China, Muffling An Open Forum
圖／ingimage
BEIJING — For the past few years, social media in China has been dominated by the Twitter- like Sina Weibo, a microblogging service that created an online sphere of freewheeling public debate, incubating social change and at times even holding politicians accountable in a country where traditional media outlets are severely constrained. But in recent months, Weibo has been eclipsed by the Facebook- like WeChat, which allows instant messaging within self-selected circles of followers.
The shift from public to semiprivate communication, accelerated by a government crackdown on Weibo, has reordered the social media landscape for the country’s 600 million Internet users, curbing what had been modern China’s most open public forum. “This is a new phase for social media in China,” said Hu Yong, a professor at Peking University. “It is the decline of the first largescale forum for information in China and the rise of something more narrowly focused.”
WeChat has its advantages and its defenders. It is less censored than Weibo, and some users say it allows them to speak more freely, knowing that their conversations are private.
In May, though, the government announced that WeChat would be more heavily monitored. Saying that instant messaging services were being used to spread “violence, terrorism and pornography,” the agency charged with policing the Internet said it would “firmly fight infiltration from hostile forces at home and abroad,” according to a government statement.
In its heyday, Weibo promised much more. It came to prominence in 2011 after a high-speed rail crash killed 40 people. Weibo users detailed the mayhem and government shortcomings that led to the accident. It was a signal moment in the Internet’s coming of age in China, a reminder of how the medium could challenge even an authoritarian government.
Weibo is still important.
Boundary-pushing news and commentaries are still more easily found there than in the more tightly controlled world of government news media. It reported in March that it had 66 million daily users, up 37 percent over a year earlier.
But government figures show that the overall number of microblog users, including those using Weibo , fell by 9 percent last year, with many migrating to WeChat.
“You can still find facts on Weibo, or news reports, but the comments aren’t as interesting or deep,” said He Weifang, a lawyer and onetime heavy blogger on Weibo with more than a million followers.
One reason is the government crackdown on the so-called Big V accounts — prominent commenters, with verified accounts, who often had millions of followers. After hundreds were detained, most stopped posting on Weibo.
Others quit because of the sharp tone of commentary on Weibo, which often devolved into nasty attacks. Some grew tired of the dizzying list of banned terms and the cat-and-mouse games with censors to evade them. WeChat seized on the frustration.
Its parent company, Tencent, claims 355 million monthly users. The company does not make public the number of daily users, making a comparison to Weibo difficult.
Activists say WeChat allows them to dig deeper into issues with like-minded people. The veteran environmentalist Li Bo has used WeChat for more than two years to rally opposition to damaging infrastructure projects, such as a plan to dam the Nu River.
WeChat has built-in constraints that hobble its ability to replicate Weibo’s public sphere. WeChat allows the creation of public accounts that anyone can follow, but limits posts to one a day. In addition, access to public accounts is not possible on cellphones, making it more difficult, for instance, to launch an incriminating photo of a public official into the blogosphere.
Comments are also deleted after a few days, erasing a historical record. The government also monitors these accounts and recently deleted some covering social news and politics.
Still, WeChat remains a powerful tool for activists, even if Weibo’s promise of an open online society has been frustrated.
Hu Jia, who has worked on environmental causes for 15 years, said the advent of social media, despite its limitations, had produced a better-informed society. “Weibo and WeChat are gifts from God,” he said. “Despite all the government surveillance, the benefits we get are even greater for people trying to organize society.”
中譯
過去幾年，類似推特的新浪微博一直是中國大陸最主要的社群媒體。這種微網誌服務創造網路上的自由討論公共空間，不但孕育社會變革，甚至在傳統媒體仍受嚴格限制的中國大陸，不時要求政治人物為一些問題扛起責任。
然而近幾個月，微博已被類似臉書的WeChat比下去。後者讓網友在自選的追隨者之間收發簡訊。
官方打壓微博加快了公共通信變成半私人通信的速度，不只重劃有6億網友的中國大陸社群媒體版圖，而且抑制曾經是現代中國大陸最開放的公共論壇。
北大教授胡勇說：「對中國大陸的社群媒體而言，這是個新階段。這是中國大陸第一個大規模資訊論壇的式微，也是另一種更專注形式的崛起。」
WeChat有它的優勢及擁護者。它受到的監控不像微博那塺嚴密。部分網友說這讓他們更能暢所欲言，因為對話具有私密性。
不過北京當局五月說，WeChat將受到更嚴密監控。負責監控網路的官方機構在聲明中說，有心人利用簡訊散播「暴力、恐怖主義與色情」，它將「堅決對抗來自國內外敵對勢力的滲透」。
在它的鼎盛期，微博承諾得更多。2011年的一場高鐵意外事故導致40人罹難之後，它旦夕成名。微博用戶詳細報導此一重大事故與官方的疏失。這是象徵中國大陸網路時代來臨的重要時刻，證明這種媒體連威權政府都能挑戰。
微博還是很重要。在這裡，挑戰極限的新聞與評論，還是比在監控嚴密許多的官方媒體容易看到。微博三月報導，它每天的用戶平均6600萬人次，比一年前增加37%。
然而根據官方統計，包括微博用戶在內的微網誌使用者總人數去年減少9%，其中許多人轉到WeChat。
曾經常在微博貼文，追隨者逾百萬的維權律師賀衛方說：「你還是可以在微博看到事實或新聞報導，然而評論已經不像以前麼有趣或深入。」
原因之一是，官方打壓所謂的大V名人言論。這些知名評論家擁有認證帳戶，往往有數百萬追隨者。數百大V遭到拘押後，多數不再在微博貼文。
有些人因為微博評論的語氣過於尖銳，甚至淪為惡意攻訐而退出。有的人因為禁語太多，又常須與官方玩貓捉老鼠的遊戲而感到厭倦。
WeChat趁機而入。它的母公司騰訊號稱每個月吸引3.55億人次。它並未公布每日的使用者人數，以致難與微博比較。
活躍人士說，WeChat使他們得以與志同道合者共同深入發掘各種問題。兩年多來，環保老將李波（譯音）不斷透過WeChat號召各界同聲反對多項有害的公共工程計畫，例如在怒江建壩。
WeChat內建的限制使它難以複製微博的公眾領域分量。WeChat允許網友開設任何人都可以跟隨的公共帳戶，卻將貼文限制在一天一則。網友也無法透過手機進入公共帳戶，使他們更難將不利於某官員的照片張貼在部落格。
評論會在數日後刪除，連帶刪除相關紀錄。官方也會監控這些帳戶，最近並刪除一些報導社會新聞與政治的貼文。即使微博允諾開創開放式網路社群的雄心壯志已經受挫，WeChat仍然是活躍人士手上的有力工具。
已為環保奔走請命15年的胡佳說，社群媒體雖然有其限制，它的興起還是造就了資訊比較流通的社會。他說：「微博與WeChat是天賜的禮物。雖然政府嚴密監控，嘗試組織社群的民眾卻仍然受益良多。」
本城市首頁
看回應文章
等級：8
