Why are social medias blocked in China ?

 

Many predicted that the next phase of the industrial revolution of the human kind is the industry 4.0 based on smart sensors (IoT), robotics, big data and artificial intelligence. The key to this revolution is not all about technology, but about data, adoption and markets.

I’ll first answer question this from a complete computer science point of view.

The theory and models about AI e.g. deep neural networks can be easily understood and built by a decent PhD student. But only those who have an abundance of training data wins. In our AI research field, universities either have to cooperate with big organisations such as Google, Amazon or government to gain access to the data in order to do the research. That’s why the future belongs to the selective few giant companies that have control of the training data.

The future cold war between the US and China is all about data. That’s why China won’t allow Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google, Amazon or any kind of social network to mine the data of Chinese users. These companies are US companies and are not trusted by Chinese after all. The US won’t allow Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent or perhaps future Tik Tok to mine the data of US users for security concerns. These companies are Chinese companies and are not trusted by Americans after all.

The data cold war includes:

1. User basic info/relations/preferences/activities/faces/voice

2. App services using Cloud APIs such as Google/Facebook APIs

3. Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) Geographic data in autonomous vehicles, commercial drones and traffic networks

4. Regional demand, supply, logistics information on commercial goods. Real-time economics and planning.

5. Financial contract records, payments, debts, funds, leverages to implement a national blockchain system and cryptocurrency

6. Medical, biological, ecological captured in hospitals, sensors and labs.

7. Producers of social media news means of propagation and receiving audiences.

Don’t ever complain about your privacy concerns during the data cold war. Your data is collected everywhere in both regimes, and I guarantee you are unaware of 90% of the data captured behind your back.

For example, click the following link to see your activities in Google.

https://myactivity.google.com/my...

Although Google claimed that only you can see the data, do you really believe this?

I suggest everyone should review your concept about privacy.

Your privacy and activities are just like your money: You put your money in a bank because you trust them. And similarly, you also put your privacy in Google because you trust Google. Behind your back, your bank used your money to do some investments. Your Google used your face images to train their face recognition, your Google used your Google Map navigations to train their route planning, and your Google used your searches to train advertisement to make money etc. These are exactly the same thing. That’s why most Google services are always free of charge to you. Just like banks don’t want your money when you deposit money.

For your information, foreign banks could not operate normal saving accounts in China as well, just like Google and Facebook. However, you can ask someone else outside China to open a bank account in the US for you. That is how VPN works. This is very similar, right?

Your bank does also have a credit rating on you, and they just didn’t tell you explicitly. When you apply for a credit card, your bank just tells you how reliable you are. Your credit record is shared across the banks, insurance companies, and brokers. You can’t just switch banks and create a new credit card if you have a bad record from your previous bank. Who controls the information? Don’t you ever think about this question?

The situation is exactly the same in China. The difference is that your privacy, information, credit is stored in the Great Universal Data Bank of the Chinese Government.

Do you trust the Chinese government? You don’t have a choice. If you don’t challenge the system then everything would be fine. Just like in the US, can you challenge the banking association or insurance companies? You don’t have a choice.

Another misconception is that most people think everyone is using Google, Facebook, WhatsApp worldwide, and only China is the one who is isolated. The truth is: Almost half the global Internet population is in China. For example, if there are 100 people, 60 people use WhatsApp and 40 people use Wechat. Do you think the Wechat users are isolated? And actually, the Internet penetration in China is much higher than the West including everyday life and including older and poor people. In China, poor people have to rely on Wechat or Taobao to resell some cheap knockoffs. It is becoming their source of income.

Is the Chinese government actually afraid of those anti-Chinese news that destabilize the society? I would say before 2010, the answer is yes. But now, it is the contrary. The great firewall protects you. If the Great firewall is unblocked, all of youtube and facebook would be jammed with another 700 million Chinese users. At least half of them would be pro-CCP. Those anti-Chinese channels would suffer millions of dislikes on their videos. You will meet 100x more wumaos if you don’t censor yourself.

Data is the Chinese government greatest concern

Look at Google Maps. Is there really a need to block Google Map? We all know that Google Map is the best map of them all. And you can’t destabilize China just using Google Map. The reason is the data after all. The Chinese government won’t allow you to mine the geographic data in Chinese soil. That’s simple. In China, you would always choose Gaode Map and Baidu Map because of the amount of information for shops/restaurants/reviews are protected by the Chinese government not Google.

In this regard, given roughly the same Internet population, the amount of data collected by China is more or less the same as the amount of data collected by Google. However, in terms of adoption and market, China is in a much better position in collecting data. In the west, collecting data is crippled by concerns in privacy, human rights and fears. In China, there are no such barriers to collect data. For example, Chinese hospitals can collect data from all breast cancer cases and measurement from all Chinese patients so that they can use AI to help detect cancer based on early syndromes. This would not be easy for the US because you have to ask for permission for all the patients.

The second key is adoption. This has to be government oriented. The Chinese government is unique in adopting new AI applications compared to the West. If the AI application is proved to be effective in improving the living convenience of the citizens and maintaining social stability and safety, the Chinese government is quick to adopt freshly-new technology and apply them in all 300 cities with populations over 1 million in China. Of course, this could not happen in other countries.

You can just look at Chinese propaganda on Youtube to know more about AI adoption in China. I would suggest New China TV. Yes, they are propaganda but they are also true, and they only show good things in China.

Why doesn’t India block Google since anti-India news are everywhere? Don’t they destabilize Indian society as well ?

Because the Indian government knows that its domestic companies are too weak to be alternatives to Google. Meanwhile, the 1.4 billion Indian people are already heavily exploited by foreign companies including Google and Facebook. Even Chinese companies like XiaoMi, Oppo, and Vivo can mine their data easily. Then the Americans and Chinese would understand better what those Indian people really like, and they would continue to come up with new products favored by Indians. In the future, there are no chances for an Indian domestic company to challenge foreign companies unless the Indian government bans foreign accesses and support domestic companies like China did.

Why can’t we just allow open competition at all? Why is China so special?

My answer is simple, this is obviously protectionism. We Chinese are such hypocrites, that is true actually. Xi Jinping tells everyone that protectionism hurts the economy and trade, but meanwhile he can’t allow open competition from Google and Facebook. He blocks Google because he just wanted to cultivate domestic companies.

However, I would say the Great Firewall of China would be torn down one day eventually. Whenever the domestic Chinese companies like Alibaba, Huawei, Baidu or other new companies are powerful and confident enough to face the challenges from Google and Facebook, whenever most Americans choose to use Wechat instead of WhatsApp, whenever the Chinese win the data cold war against US and control the mainstream media, then the Chinese government would lift the Great Firewalls immediately. By that time, maybe most people would prefer to use made-in-China software and services instead of Google, just like everyone likes to use DJI drones.

Maybe this is just a dream. But who knows !