The Internet in China

The Internet is a major tool for communication and information access for more than 2.5 billion people (Wright 121). The Internet has become an inevitable reality, but it consumes our planet in an information network. Our actions and choices shape this process and eventually unite us (Deibert 11). Today, China has over 538 million Internet users, the world's largest online community (Feng & Guo 335). In the early days, the Chinese Internet was viewed as an information super highway throughout China (Guobin 51).

When entrepreneur Benjamin Joffe expressed China's Internet as a protected ecosystem with its own digital species, he pointed out several important things. The Internet in China is different. As its influence grows, the country is challenging our perception of the Internet that will have a global impact. Today, Chinese censorship in China seems more or less common sense and even in many of the world's most important websites are not seen in China. At the same time, many people are underestimating the complexity of the country's IT industry. So what is the most important thing about the Internet inside the firewall?

Sina is one of the oldest and most famous internet companies in China. Early in China's Internet economy, it changed its ecosystem to a variant of BuzzFeed-Tumblr-Twitter-Snapchat-YouTube-Twitch with the help of its Weibo subsidiary. Microblogging was originally a true Twitter clone, but it gradually evolved by extending its function. For example, you can expose up to 2000 character limit (rather than Twitter's 140-character limit) and provide users with temporary videos like Snapchat and traditional videos posted on YouTube. Live broadcasting is also a major business segment.