The Censorship in China

All About Censorship

Social media. When we think of social media we think of social networking. Before, social media was all about interacting with friends and connecting with long lost relatives. Now, media is all about social networking for new businesses and for celebrity gossips. So, what happens when a country, such as China, bans every social media that the world has to offer? Things gets difficult for the people in China to network and engage with their friends and family. China is limited to social media, but why? Why is this all happening in China? Why does China want to censor every social media? Are they against the social media world?

China is the motherland of their culture and food. They are also a huge communist country. They are all about the control of all their citizens. Some parts of China are not communist, such as, Hong Kong. The following websites that are being banned from China are: Google, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. There is one thing about this censorship: CONTROL.

These following websites are the websites people go to the most. China is now replacing these websites to control their own country. If they ban these social media websites, they can make their own to replace these websites. For example, they banned YouTube but made their own website which is somewhat like YouTube that can only be used in their region. If we were to use it in the U.S., then it would not work. It would say “not available in your region.” The website is called Youku. I personally went to that website and found mostly Chinese shows and Chinese dramas on this website. There is not a wide variety like what YouTube has to offer. YouTube offers a whole lot more compared to this website. This website only allows users to upload videos found on other websites. The list of social media that are banned in China are: YouTube, snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. People who are in China’s region have to use a VPN to access these social medias in order to use it.

Nikki Say It Now:

This has to deal with control when it comes to what the Chinese government is doing. If social media is huge globally, they will control social media. They only allow their citizens to use the websites that are developed by them because it is easier for them to track what their citizens are doing. The website is developed by them, so it is the fastest way for them to control what their citizens are doing on the internet. Freaky, right? To know that your browser is being tracked by the government. To think about it, we are getting tracked by the U.S. government by being identified with numbers. What I mean by number is social security numbers. Our legal name does not matter, if you think about it. They are still going to ask about those 9-digit numbers. We are controlled secretly as well. I think China has been more public about their censorship and other things they have full control over than us. For instance, the one-child policy—everybody in the world knew about their one-child policy and how China wanted to control their overpopulated country. It’s a sad situation for female infants to be forced into orphanages because of the policy, but that is what China does to their civilians. I broadcast in this app called Live.me, and I was talking to this broadcaster who is a UK native and resides in China for work. He told me about the VPN to access social media like YouTube or Instagram. He said to me that if people in China do not have a good VPN to connect to, then it is hard to connect to just YouTube. He said he can connect to Instagram perfectly fine using the VPN, but since YouTube is being connected to the UK region, it is glitchy at times.