Results tagged “twitter”

If there's one thing that we at Shanghaiist would like to thank the Net Nanny for, it's that she's totally reunited Chinese microbloggers with the one big happy family that is Twitter again. You see, previously, everyone was distributed across a plethora of local microblogging services, but now with the demise of the two kingpins of the Chinese twitter clone world, Fanfou and Jiwai, everyone's just decided to collectively show the GFW their middle finger by signing up for a VPN and rejoining the conversation on Twitter.

Since our live blogging of Obama's town hall meeting with Chinese students earlier today, a few interesting things have come to light.

The number of China's Internet users have reached 360 million, says ChinaTechNews - a pretty darn sizable market that has attracted considerable attention (and you know, a thousand internet-addiction camp proprietors).

And he got the characters right. 冠軍 means "champion" (he's using traditional characters). The other side says "Chatty." According to Artest's Twitter page, Chatty is the name of a friend who passed away. On Twitter, Artest also says he flew in Boogie the barber from Orlando for the cut and paid him a hotel room plus $20. Artest and the Lakers begin their quest to prove the left side of his head correct at 10:30 am Shanghai time against, fittingly, the Clippers. Source: Ball Don't Lie

When invited to post thoughts about "which walls still have to come down to make our world a better place!" on a website dedicated to celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Chinese twitterers replied en mass. In fact, looking on the site right now, it seems that there's barely anyone else besides Chinese twitterers commenting on how much they hate the GFW.

And several of the other GFW-themed shirts available at their store.

One year on and suddenly, Lu Yiying, the Shanghai-born, Australia-based creator of Twitter's fail whale, is suddenly getting a sudden media reemergence. Besides an audio interview with the BBC, she was also featured in a more in-depth piece by digital design site vectortuts+.

What is this? A pretty cool graphic of China twitterers based on where they're located. Thanks to resizing issues, it's hard to read this pic, but head over to @gabyu's web trend map and you'll find a good list of people to follow if you're into China issues (us included!).

Months after Twitter was blocked and Chinese Twitter clones Fanfou, Digu, and Zuosa (apparently Zuosa is still alive) were felled by the mighty hand of the CCP censorship army, Internet portal Sina has started its own "microblogging service."

Peter Guo (郭宝峰), a self-described "troublemaker in Amoy (Xiamen)" experienced what everyone who Twitters or blogs in China is not-so-secretly afraid of - one of his blog posts got him in trouble with the police, who threw him in jail. He was one of as many as seven bloggers who were detained after writing about a 25-year-old woman, Yan Xiaoling, who had allegedly been gang-raped and murdered by someone connected to local authorities in Fujian. Guo's crime: reposting something that had already been put on a BBS in Fujian Province, titled "Yan Xiaoling (嚴曉玲) much more miserable than Deng Yujiao (鄧玉嬌)." Deng Yujiao is a waitress turned national heroine who became famous for stabbing an official who may have sexually assaulted her. He then posted a video he had found, completely unedited, in which Yan Xiaoling's mother accused local authorities of trying to cover up the case.

• Despite Banning Twitter, 92% of China Netizens Use Social Media [Read Write Web] "According to a recent report, Chinese netizens are twice as likely to use chat and three times more likely to micro-blog, blog and use video conference than American users. The Netpop Research study shows that mainland Chinese citizens are "more likely to share information broadly and openly." This comes as a surprise as the country's censorship has been such a topic of contention. Nevertheless, the study estimates that up to 92% of Chinese netizens use social media, meanwhile, only 76% of US netizens do the same."
• Xinjiang Crackdown and Changing Perceptions of China in the Islamic World? [The Jamestown Foundation] "While it is clearly in China’s interest to resolve the crisis in Xinjiang on terms that promote long-term reconciliation and stability and address the legitimate grievances of the Uighur community, the recent violence will have little impact on Beijing’s relations with the Middle East and wider Islamic world. Turkish and Iranian criticism of China, which at this point has amounted to little more than rhetoric in the first place, will likely prove to be an exception rather than a precursor of future trends. In the long run, China’s diplomatic and economic clout is too important to ignore."
• Beijing Softens Stand on Emissions Cap [Wall Street Journal] "China and the U.S. are still miles apart. China, driven by a historically unprecedented wave of urbanization and industrialization, has recently surpassed the U.S. as the top emitter of greenhouse gasses. But Beijing insists that rich industrialized countries have a responsibility to clean up first. On the other side, countries like the U.S. say big countries like China and India are growing so fast that, unless they accept absolute limits on their greenhouse gasses, the extra pollution from all of their new factories obliterate gains made elsewhere, gutting the value of any deal."

• E-waste 'recycling' in Guiyu, China [Alex Hofford] "So today I decided to upload more photos from a recent trip to Guiyu, the 'e-waste processing capital of China', that I made as part of a field project for my MJ course at the University of Hong Kong's JMSC. I have put these photos at the back of the album, behind the photos from Guangxi Province and Hong Kong that I took in 2007 and 2008."
• 9,000 officials guilty of graft: SPP [China Daily] "The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) revealed yesterday that more than 9,000 officials were found guilty of corruption in the first six months of the year and said it had investigated 6,277 industrial bribery cases. Qiu Xueqiang, SPP deputy procurator general, told a conference of procuratorate chiefs that the industrial bribery cases involved 6,842 people."
• China snubs World Games opening [BBC] "China has boycotted the opening ceremony of the World Games in Taiwan, an official with the games has said. A spokesman for the games, Hermann Kewitz, said China had not given an explanation but said that Chinese athletes would compete in the events. Beijing's decision came after organisers allowed Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou to open the games."

@timrider: "Save elevator/qi che power with roof based building2building ziplines! Super quick commute & likely reduced death defiance!" Sure it's not the most practical, but it's a fun thought and it caused us to have a good laugh. If there's anything we WOULD love to do to save the environment, it'd be to act like an urban Tarzan. @timrider wins a night at URBN, China's only eco-friendly hotel, located in the heart of Jing'an. The runner ups: @leirda with "mass broadcast of Captain Planet on public transport TVs to begin the recruitment of 1.3 billion planeteers. Go Planet!" (We loved Captain Planet as kids) and @cedric_c with "Save tons of CO2/month forbidding all media besides Shanghaiist. Less CO2, Greener city, only 1 media to spend green $ for ads." (because we're flattered).

Don't take our word for it, bust out your favorite Twitter client or, if you're old school, try their website. And it seems that Flickr has returned from maintenance purgatory as well. Some people are reporting less than full normalcy and functionality, but at least it's coming through.

Chinese microblogging site Fanfou (饭否) is now temporarily unavailable for "server maintenance" and according to a note posted on its website (see screenshot), will be back up by the morning of June 6. From now till then is four days, so this sounds like some pretty massive "server maintenance" going on, but make of it what you will. Meanwhile, it's business as usual at other Chinese Twitter clones Digu, Zuosa, Komoo and Taotao.

With China "commemorat[ing] something that never happened with prolonged online moment of silence," as someone cleverly put it, now's a good time to get stocked up on as much Great Firewall scaling advice as possible. Just a few weeks ago, we detailed some ways to climb up outta heah for free.

Youtube, Blogspot, Tumblr, Livejournal, Xanga, Wordpress, Friendfeed, Flickr, Microsoft's Live.com and yes... now Twitter too (noooooo!). A little bird tells us that apparently you can still read and post to twitter from another very popular social networking site which we won't name in hopes that it won't get blocked too. We bet you can guess what it is. Otherwise, going through a proxy and searching "#twitterblock" should help you find ways to get around the ban as well. Oh... how could we forget - Bing.com is also blocked (man, Microsoft can't catch a break here can they? Wonder what kind of guanxi google has that they don't in this country). If there was ever a time to get a VPN, now is it.

So how effective are China's emergency provisions against contracting swine flu? We're not sure right now! While news reports are coming out saying that, according to the World Health Organization's representative, authorities are investigating several suspected human cases in the country, that doesn't mean there IS swine flu here. It's just that some people that have come in contact with certain swine flu risky situations are now being checked out. In fact, WHO told the public it's not really "probable" that swine flu's hit the country yet... despite what your twitter feeds might say. Hmmm... maybe there was some logic to accusing twitter of being a panic monger after all. (thanks to @RodrigoMX and @doubleleaf for links)

The next big epidemic is here and this time around it didn't come out of China! Swine flu, a respiratory disease in pigs, has somehow spread to humans - infecting a total of 20 people in the U.S. so far and allegedly killing more than 103 in Mexico!

You know that much hyped Oasis show that got canceled because of guitarist Noel Gallagher's opinion on Tibet? Well, in case you had any doubt, it seems like his opinion may have been a bit overstated.

...@samgaskin, for his hilarious (and kind of sexy!) tweet: "I’d buy Natalie Portman 2 tattoos. On her left thigh RITZ & her right CARLTON but I’d use retroactive ink so they’re in Closer" as an answer to Ctrip's question: If we gave you 1,000 RMB to spend, what would you do to show the world your appreciation to the Ritz Carlton for your amazing free stay? We knew that movie was good for something! Congrats, and enjoy your free weekend stay at the Portman Ritz Carlton's sweet Club Executive Suite (worth around 15,000RMB). And thank you Ctrip!

Ctrip is hosting a Twitter competition to give away the sweet prize of weekend stay at the Portman Ritz Carlton’s Club Executive Suite (worth around 15,000RMB) and guess who's the guest judge? Everybody's favorite city blog - that's right, us (and don't you try to tell us differently). All you have to do to possibly win your stay at the Ritz is to answer this question from Ctrip: "If we gave you 1,000 RMB to spend, what would you do to show the world your appreciation to the Ritz Carlton for your amazing free stay?" as awesomely as possible. It can be funny, it can be touching, it can be plain weird - just Twitter Ctrip something 140 characters long that will make our eyes pop. (While you are at it, follow us on Twitter, too.)

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Harper's Magazine recently announced via Twitter that all 25 years of its awesome stats section, Harper's Index, was now available and searchable online here. We searched "shanghai" and got two results. One was about Chairman Mao jackets at Shanghai Tang, and the other was actually related to the city. Here it is, from June 2005: "Percentage change since 1994 in treatment for male infertility and erectile dysfunction in Shanghai: +100." There are considerably more results for "china."

Shop 1104A, 8 Jianguo Xi Road near Sinan Road. 建国西路8号， 近思南路

Congratulations to Matt Mayer who yesterday became (we believe) the first person to visit every station on the Shanghai Metro system in one day.

That's what Matt Mayer, the guy behind the ExploreShanghai metro map is trying to do right now. He laid out his plan, and the rules, here, a blog post that finished with: "147 stations, eight lines, one manic Monday. Wish me luck!" You can follow Matt's progress live on Twitter. His last message: "50 shanghai metro stations completed in 3h 7m 33s. Station 50 is west nanjing road. Shame i dont have time to visit marks and spencers :)" You can get in touch with Matt throughout the day. We're sure he'd love to here from you — it's going to be a long, boring Monday.

Just a quick note reminding you of the many ways to keep track of what's happening on Shangaiist (other than Shanghaiist.com, of course). You can follow us on Twitter. You can join our group on Facebook. You can become a fan of Shanghaiist on Facebook. And you can subscribe to our RSS feed. We suggest consulting your doctor before attempting all four simultaneously.