Chinese Internet is a small island

This is a pretty counterintuitive thing:

Although 19.3% of the global netizens are Chinese users , ranking second only to English users (25.2%), and China also has a large number of Internet giants such as Alibaba and Tencent, which are second only to the United States and have the largest traffic in the world. Among the 50 websites in China, 19 are Chinese websites , which is second only to the United States, but: Chinese websites only account for 1.3% of global websites , ranking 10th in the world, far lower than English websites, even lower than Russian, Languages such as Turkish and Persian that are considered niche by everyone.

Some people divide the percentage of Internet content (by language) by the percentage of netizens (by language), and finally found that Chinese netizens can browse Chinese content is very insufficient (17%), only slightly better than Korean netizens (15%) ), far lower than English and Russian users (200%), even Japanese users (84%) and Portuguese users (57%). The blogger finally came to the conclusion that Chinese users are in desperate need of content.

Of course, this calculation method is problematic. After all, Internet content is not bread. If one person eats it, the other person will not have to eat it. From personal experience alone, every user who logs in to the Internet is faced with an endless banquet, and it is impossible for him to finish it by himself. However, just looking at the percentage of Chinese websites in the world, it can be seen that the Chinese Internet is a very small venue. It can be said that it is a small island that is very disproportionate to the number of users. Everyone is standing on a few oligarchic websites, crowded with people.

If it is said that these oligarchic websites can provide enough degrees of freedom, then it is not a problem, but all high-traffic Chinese websites are basically websites within the wall, and each website implements strict censorship of speech. This leads to the fact that what can be displayed on the website is always "safe", cookie-cutter, generalized on shallow things, and has little practical value.

The Chinese Internet space outside the wall is also very small. There are only Hongkongers, Taiwanese, Singaporeans, and a small number of Chinese communities in various countries. The overall population itself is not large, and the quality of Chinese Internet content produced is only Fewer (in addition, there is a troublesome problem that most of them use the services provided by English Internet companies, resulting in Chinese content appearing scattered among the massive English content, it is difficult to connect with each other, and it is difficult to discuss and generate also more disadvantageous).

This is where a very odd situation arises:

Although there are 860 million Chinese Internet users, the second largest in the world, and although Chinese Internet companies are very powerful and competition is fierce, the Chinese Internet environment is extremely narrow.

Last year, I was looking for a website similar to Matters, but I couldn't find it. My requirements are not high, I just want a website without censorship, open and free, environmentally rational, and user-friendly (well, maybe still high), but there is none. I suddenly felt like I was a small islander in a Pacific island country, speaking a unique language, and looking around, there was nowhere to talk to anyone but on the island.

Such a small Chinese Internet space has many disadvantages, of course. Last year I wrote in my notes:

"In such a small Chinese online space, the ideas that can be burst out are also rare. In fact, speech control itself is restricting the appearance of ideas. However, due to the large number of Chinese online content, it is quite confusing at first glance, so that People feel that the Chinese Internet space is quite large, but in fact, most of them are meaningless content.

Due to the scarcity of thoughtful content, the low-intelligence Chinese Internet environment will deteriorate people's intellectual level, causing people to become more stupid. When facing valuable ideas, there will also be delays in receiving or not receiving them. Locking down a country always worsens the internal environment, and the same goes for the Internet.

Because of circumstances, people will get used to being stupid and think it's not stupid. The overall IQ drops again and again, and finally it becomes more difficult to communicate with the outside world.

Moreover, the bad Chinese Internet environment inside the wall will gradually deteriorate the Chinese Internet environment outside the wall, because fools are contagious (crossed out), because the language is the same, popular Internet vocabulary and popular logic errors (mainly in cursing and used when rebutting) will also be passed out.

Based on the above, the global Chinese Internet environment will deteriorate step by step, and the space will become very narrow, which will lead to the stupidity of ideas on the Chinese Internet, and the stupidity of people affected by it. Stupid environment is deceptive, it can make people get used to it slowly and not realize it is stupid, vicious circle, worsening. "

At the end of this note, I came to the conclusion that I have to use English.

Yesterday, I flipped through this note, and felt that the evil effect of a small cyberspace is not only to stifle the mind and make people more stupid, it also has an effect: it can mobilize the attention of the vast majority of netizens in a short period of time. , to make people pay attention to (and ignore) certain things.

Sometimes, when I look through the WeChat public accounts I subscribe to, I often feel strange that even trivial matters can be reported by the self-media and mainstream media in turn, as if they are really important. For example, the screenwriter who went to Weibo to post a self-pity testimonial when his toilet was broken, and then was scolded by the hot search, for example, the international student who wanted to drink a bottle of mineral water but was rejected and then ridiculed by the whole network. Bigger things, such as Xiao Zhan's fan report that led to the ban of AO3, have been reported by various media for more than a month, and we can still see in-depth reports. It's not that these events are worthless at all, it's just that they don't have the level of value to match such a large amount of attention. Many times, the Chinese Internet feels like a QQ group in a class. The propaganda committee and the monitor can tell me over and over again in the class. It's very naive and boring.

The media reports a lot of trivial matters. The reason behind it is that censorship of speech has prevented more important things from being reported and sent out, and can only write entertainment gossip and product sales. This makes it hard to get attention for the really important things, and too much attention for the unimportant things. People are like standing on the towering ruins of their own homes, watching two roosters fight.

In addition to wasting social attention, in some events, social attention can also be used quickly, so that "people will pay attention wherever the leader points." For example, in the late stage of the epidemic, the stigmatization of international students turned the public's attack on them. This kind of social ideological transformation, which originally required a lot of time and resources, can be accomplished by posting a few Weibo and WeChat messages in a month because of the narrow public opinion field on the Internet. For another example, it is difficult for Weibo users in 2013 to imagine the current Weibo environment. It took 3 years (2013-2015) from the majority of the rightists to the majority of the leftists. In the following years, it became more pink and extreme. It is not difficult to control public opinion and build momentum in this narrow space.

The Chinese Internet is a small island, so how can we reclaim the sea and create more free space?

I think we need more Chinese websites outside the walls . We no longer have free space on oligarchic sites, but we can still carve out our own territory. Of course, everyone is an ordinary person without capital and technology, so all they can do is to build their own personal website. After AO3 was blocked, many fan writers opened their own blog sites and put their articles on it to avoid censorship, and wordpress can also focus on specific sites, and RSS can also be used. I think these are all very good, but this wave of blogging can be expanded beyond just writing danmei fiction. Under the protection of anonymity and decentralization, we can get more freedom, better content, and deeper discussions