• ABOUT
  • ADVERTISE
  • SUPPORT
  • CONTACT
  • WORK
Wednesday, April 14, 2021
Shanghaiist
8 °c
Shanghai
7 ° Sat
6 ° Sun
6 ° Mon
5 ° Tue
5 ° Wed
9 ° Thu
  • NEWS

    The “world’s tallest swing” is now open in Chongqing and it looks absolutely terrifying

    Kid falls from second story while imitating Kobe Bryant’s fadeaway

    Guy wearing police uniform for “safety” pulled over by highway cops

    Dalian to test 190,000 residents after 3 new confirmed cases are reported

    One-legged Chinese baller inspires others with his hard work and three-point shot

    Chinese courier company caught using mannequins as security inspectors

    China opens another world’s longest glass-bottomed bridge in Guangdong province

    3-year-old girl and her grandma beaten with shovel in horrific “revenge” attack

    Workers spotted burning documents as US orders China to close its Houston consulate

    LOOK: Massive landslide blocks river in Hubei province

    IKEA to open new downtown location in Shanghai this week

    Hunan bus drivers block road to pass bag of betel nuts across opposite lanes

    Jilin driver delayed by 20 minutes by wild Siberian tiger relaxing on the road

    6-year-old boy drowns to death during first swimming lesson at public pool

    Neighbor smoothly catches toddler falling from 5th floor

    Dude spotted chillaxing on self-made raft on river in Chongqing during flood season

    Shanghai dude gets part of ear bitten off while stopping drunk guy from assaulting woman

    Woman mysteriously disappears from home in Hangzhou, leaving behind no trace

    Two women get stuck in elevator at home for 4 days, drink their own urine to stay alive

    Urumqi goes on lockdown as fears rise of a new coronavirus outbreak in Xinjiang

  • L!FE
  • FOOD
  • GALLERY
  • VIDEO

    WATCH: Colorized footage of life in Beijing a century ago

    Hunan high school turns gym into cafeteria to keep students separated

    Kung fu school reopens teaching students how to swing bricks from their balls

    Dancing aunties and uncles return to Wuhan sidewalks

    Xi Jinping actually made a joke!

    Shanghai dad builds Death Stranding like safety pod to protect baby from coronavirus

    Tag along on food tour of Lanzhou, the hometown of hand-pulled noodles

    Man smashes bus window, jumps out after being stuck in traffic for 20 minutes

    Scooter driver somehow survives being squashed by massive panes of glass

    How students at a Xuzhou primary school have taken jump rope to the next level

    How this Chinese martial arts master “jumps on water”

    Bringing your date to your studio apartment of great shame

    Male designer loses 25 kg, goes viral modeling women’s clothing

    Take a look inside Taiwan’s “most luxurious university dormitories”

    Racers take the stairs in 119-floor vertical marathon up the Shanghai Tower

    Meet China’s captivating “roly-poly girl” who defies gravity with a smile

    Awful Chinese propaganda rappers take on Hong Kong protests, sample Trump

    Trying the food at a Chinese Muslim wedding in Kaifeng

    What it’s like visiting home after living in China

    Watch this Chinese teen jump rope 228 times in just 30 seconds

  • TICKETS
    • FAQ
  • ★ BE A PATRON
    • ★ DONATE
No Result
View All Result
Shanghaiist
No Result
View All Result
Shanghaiist
No Result
View All Result

Jike’s attempt to censor news about its 0.0001% market share has backfired

by benjamincost
May 5, 2018
in News

jike-censorship.png
Jike, the ultra-censored search engine operated by the People’s Daily, is having a bad week. The company is fighting off rumours that it is planning to lay off 100 workers, after it was revealed that in 20 months of operation the People’s Search Engine has only captured 0.0001 percent of the search market.
An anonymous whistleblower said Jike’s chairman, former Olympic table tennis champion Deng Yaping, was planning to sack 20 percent of the company’s workforce after it had generated little return on 2 billion yuan worth of investment. The whistleblower, and other tech figures such as former Google China head Kaifu Lee, laid the blame for Jike’s failure at the feet of Deng, who had little to no experience when she took up the top job.
Lest you forget for a second that Jike is an entity of the CPC, the search company now seems to be attempting to scrub the bad news off the internet, with the assistance of the propaganda department. Lee was suspended from both Sina and Tencent Weibo (though this may have backfired as he publicly called for his 30 million fans to follow him to Twitter, see below), and Chinese tech blog Huxiu, which had originally published the whistleblower’s claims, was censored.

kaifu-lee-followers.png
Lee has picked up thousands of new followers on Twitter since his suspension from Weibo. Source: Wildfire.


Like Lee, Huxiu leaped over the great firewall to defend itself, posting on its Tumblr:

In the noon of February 17, 2013, Huxiu.com received mail from the relevant departments that request us to delete the Jike Search article reports. Soon after, we found all the reprinted articles that on the Chinese Internet community within the scope were disappeared, at the same time, related information on weibo was also lost. That afternoon, Huxiu.com published another article try to analysis the gain and loss for Jike Search under Deng’s management. Again, Huxiu received another mail from the relevant departments that request to delete the article. Without any effect negotiations with the relevant departments after inconclusive, Huxiu is forced to remove this article.

Lee himself posted on LinkedIn that he still believes in social media in China despite his “current predicament”. I agree. While the Chinese system of censorship is undoubtedly one of the best in the world, this story, like the Southern Weekly incident, shows it has major gaps in its armour. Post facto censorship simply will not work in the era of Weibo and Twitter, especially not against journalists or tech companies, who are more used to than most at jumping the great firewall. The attempted muzzling of Huxiu and Lee, whether it was at Jike’s request or the propaganda department trying to protect its own, has backfired massively. A quick Google or Baidu search for Lee’s name throws up dozens of stories about his suspension from Weibo. At the time of writing Lee’s Chinese name is trending on Weibo, where users are decrying the clumsy attempt at censorship.
The Chinese web is developing its own form of the Streisand Effect, and it’s hitting the censors where it hurts.



shanghaiist-jobs.jpg

Share this:

  • Pocket
  • Telegram
  • Print
Shanghaiist

© 2005-2018 Shanghaiist - China in bite-sized portions!

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Be a Patron
  • Join the Community
  • List Your Event
  • Be a Venue Partner
  • Submit a Gallery
  • Work with us
  • Privacy & Terms
  • Contact

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • NEWS
  • L!FE
  • FOOD
  • GALLERY
  • VIDEO
  • TICKETS
    • FAQ
  • ★ BE A PATRON
    • ★ DONATE

© 2005-2018 Shanghaiist - China in bite-sized portions!