Weibo, as a commercial information service provider, is now the second largest social network in China based on user relationships (Zhang et al., 2018). The private social media platform launched under 3G technology in 2009 by Sina Corporation has innovated the mode of communication in three aspects: low communication threshold, mobile terminal and social relationship, which have created the great power of Weibo communication. By limiting the content posted to 140 characters or less and supplementing it with convenient reposting and commenting functions, the threshold and cost of content production and distribution have been largely reduced, profoundly popularising the right to communicate. The combination of the internet and mobile terminals such as cell phones and tablets makes it possible for “anyone, anytime, anywhere to publish any information”(Wang et al., 2020). Moreover, users can find real-time information on ‘Weibo Hot Search List’ which is being updated per minute as a result of algorithmic analysis of their behaviours (Che & Xu, 2019). Different from normal users, Weibo has also created space for intellectuals and high profile figures and agencies, collectively known as ‘Big Vs’, to speak directly to a huge number of their followers. It is worth noting that Weibo communication is based on trust, which means people usually follow users they trust to acquire filtered information, helping them to respond to changes in the external world and take action. The social platform has drawn the prospect of a universal communication era, in which everyone has a microphone to voice for themselves. However, the reality is more complicated based on the conflicting interests of different stakeholders involved.
1. Stakeholders introduction
Nye (2014) identified core actor sets in the “cyber regime complex”. Those with jurisdiction over the inner workings of the regime - whom might be referred to as “technologists” - include designers and administrators, who establish ways to inform and entertain netizens with the latest various news information, in a much quicker way than traditional media does (Meadows et al., 2021). The middle layer of the regime comprises various collaborations between state and private actors, with the former being partially represented by official government media and the latter mainly referring to the private business side, such as private internet or media companies. At the same time, Weibo users are fundamental stakeholders for the sake of public interest.
2. Analysis on users, designers and managers
The Chinese government in the late 1990s and early 2000s had mainly used the internet as an alternative platform for traditional publication. The state effectively outsourced the burden of regulation, holding each online operator responsible for its own permitted content and distribution range, which enabled the central party to control what, how and where content was published (Creemers, 2016). The separation of media content and distribution has led to the fragmentation of the audience, reducing the dissemination of information unfavourable to the leadership. Under the circumstance, as the designers and managers, their initial purpose of building up Weibo was to open up a free marketplace of opinion, gaining economic interests and undermining government institutions’ functions as gatekeepers (Jin et al., 2022), while as the users of the platform, it was designed as a generative force allowing netizens to create and communicate freely, producing a decentralised communication system and prompting freedom of expression (Zittrain, 2006).
Under the design and management concept, Weibo provides users with seemingly expanded space to discuss social affairs, and tears down barriers caused by traditional regulatory frameworks. However, it is also being fulfilled with disinformation/biassed information/extremism with its growing media market, not only by ordinary users, but also by particular business organisations, news agencies or ‘Big Vs’ for attention and profits (Pang et al., 2022). The consequences are serious. Based on the platform's surveillance capitalism, the algorithm detects users’ personal information and then keeps recommending the content they like or agree with, consciously or otherwise (Tandoc et al., 2017). Users could therefore easily be trapped in filter bubbles with the stereotyped news they believe in. This could be argued to increase political know-how; informational segregation filters out opposing knowledge that might be regarded as redundant since it likely does not influence the recipient (Cookson et al., 2022). From this perspective, echo chambers are more ‘efficient’ realms of communication, as users are able to expand personal knowledge of their interests and disseminate it through their close networks. As a result, the gaps between the two opposing ideologies will be widened, intensifying their conflicts, generating more hate speech and even extremism.
To tackle the challenges posed to users on their freedom to express and receive information, Weibo designers and administrators launched the algorithm shutdown button in 2022, allowing users to turn off ‘personalised recommendations’ just with one click (Tenba Group, 2023). They also updated users’ personal homepage display, making part of their personal information - their real-time IP locations and any comments posted on the platform - visible to everyone, which users cannot actively turn on or off. It was aimed at supervising netizens’ online speech in order to crack down disinformation, fake news or other offensive/inappropriate language. At the same time, facing the harmful information, users were given the option to turn on a one-click protection mechanism, under which they will not receive private messages from unfollowed people, and unfollowed people will not be able to comment or repost their content. After a week, these functions will be restored, but users will not see the previous offensive information again. Designers also set automatic notifications to users about the protection service if the system detected they had received a lot of adverse comments (Tenba Group, 2023).
However, it is hard for the technologists to completely align with the principle working for the public interest since Weibo, after all, is a commercial social network. With the algorithm continuously changing to ameliorate users’ engagements after analysing their interests and behaviours, users are increasingly attracted to the platform, and perpetuation of algorithms is thus always incentivised for the interior technical bodies of Nye’s cyber regime considering the business interests (Wang & Shi, 2017). Similarly, the ‘middle layer’ - state, may stand to benefit, as political sentiments can deepen under the algorithm amplification.
Therefore, ostensibly, both the interests of designers and managers are more towards, narrowly, protecting netizens, and widely, cleaning up the online environment. Social media companies will be keen to demonstrate care for the community of users, and public trust in these corporations is key. However, it is likely these actors also have similar allegiances to their employers - business actors and governmental actors (Jin et al., 2022).
On the one hand, the administrators responsible for the backend management system are obliged to keep Weibo communication discipline. Firstly, in terms of user management, the administrators classify users in several ways relying on specified elements, such as the number or frequency of posts, or the registration time. The managers can also conduct ‘user topping’ - placing some users in a more prominent position among relevant search results to advertise or achieve the purpose of publicity. It has encouraged frequent occurrences of commercially registered users on the platform who want to sell their businesses by posting their website links or watermarked pictures (Huang et al., 2014). Secondly, there is content management including keyword blocking. Administrators can add and modify the keywords, which will then be automatically blocked once they appear on the platform. The accounts which posted them will be marked as being against the community rules. Administrators may also manually delete certain content that has been posted, and write letters to warn the users posting with ‘malicious purposes’. The definition of ‘malicious’ could be determined internally, within this interior layer of the cyber regime, or be decided under governmental instructions. Apart from it, the managers also update announcements or responses of any changes on the social network in real time and help modify issues if needed (Jia et al., 2019).
On the other hand, the responsibilities of technologists to regulate Weibo are often intertwined with other interests, which may pose serious threats to the public interest. In the business aspect, rather than judging the qualities from an objective perspective, the administrators can help promote particular users’ businesses under monetary incentives, such as products or news stories, by prioritising their search result positions to extend their public exposure. Meanwhile, it should be noticed that following the aforementioned traditional censorship, from the government’s perspective, Weibo was expected to strengthen its internet governance through certain regulations, while sharing the platform’s commercial interests (Tong & Zuo, 2013). Therefore, instead of the designers and managers, the government can have more autonomies on defining ‘keyword’ or ‘malicious content’ which should be blocked on the network, ensuring all the content is supportive towards the government. Moreover, Weibo posts can still be constrained by the traditional content review process under the governmental control - everything needs to go through layers of approval, which makes the procedure cumbersome and lengthy, causing certain posts to lag behind in information or delaying the posts response. As a consequence, the “golden period” of crisis response might be missed, rendering Weibo failed to play the timeliness role on reporting emergency accidents (Zhang et al., 2020). Moreover, as Wu (2018) claimed, the weak response ability of the managers can lead to further challenges detrimental to Weibo information communication. For example, when interacting with the public through Weibo posts, it often involves some professional issues in related fields, which is a demanding task for the daily platform managers. Due to the lack of sufficient experiences and skills of some administrators, they might be unable to effectively address the problems, especially under the cases in which the government intervened with their requirements mentioned above. Consequently, if the administrators do not respond accurately or comprehensively, or if they leave the questions unsolved, they may fail to meet the public’s information needs and hence draw criticism from the public.
Therefore, it can be seen that the technologists, including both designers and administrators, are often challenged by the commercial interests and government absolute power, thus going against the public interest to some extent. Given that operating and managing Weibo well involves many departments and levels, and requires strong institutional safeguards, departments should establish a comprehensive Weibo management system as soon as possible. They should assign dedicated personnel to the day-to-day management and operation of the platform, provide professional training to improve the capabilities of Weibo managers and operators, promote the professionalism of them, and maintain the stability of the daily management team of Weibo. Meanwhile, inner communication within the government should be strengthened. The government needs to intentionally increase the openness, authenticity, and transparency of information, change its traditional information managing methods in the social media era, and give full trust and authorisation to the front-line Weibo managers. It should also work with technologists to optimise the Weibo content delivery service and content review process to make information delivery more efficient.
3. Analysis on state and private actors
(1) Analysis of the current information dissemination and social environment
The main influential media in Chinese society today are official media, market-based media, and ‘Zimeiti’ (user-generated self-media) (Homburg & Moody, 2021). Although all three are under the unified leadership of the Party, their different identities and philosophies have created different performances in the field of information dissemination.
The official media, represented by the People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency and CCTV, is the main force in propagating the government's policies and guiding public opinion. In actual operation, the official media adhere to the leadership of the government, forming an incomparable public opinion strength with a unified political standard, playing a significant role in promoting the superiority of the socialist system and the mainstream values of society.
However, it is undeniable that the situation of “uniform public opinion”, which was once dominated by official media, has changed significantly in recent years (Guo, 2015). The force of change comes from the rapid development of market-oriented media based on the power of capitalism and the development of self-media based on network technology.
Starting with the emergence of metropolitan newspapers at the end of the last century, market-oriented media, such as “Southern Weekend” and “Economic Observer”, have quickly captured half of the Chinese media market (Sullivan, 2013). The market-based media generally holds the concept of journalism professionalism, with the consistent pursuit of discovering the truth and reporting facts. Its most prominent feature is the belief that it is possible to report news facts objectively from a non-partisan, non-group standpoint - the goal of journalism is to serve the public as a whole, not a particular interest group (Jia & Han, 2020). From this standpoint, some market-oriented media have a very different reporting framework from the official media on numerous social issues and hot topics. If the official media pursue the values of “harmony, stability, and homogeneity”, the market media pursue “truth, independence, and pluralism” (Rauchfleisch & Schäfer, 2014). Over the past two decades, the development of market-oriented media has benefited from the transition from a planned system to a market system, which has nurtured a large public that seeks independent thinking and is willing to express opinions on public affairs, and has facilitated the transformation of Chinese society to a more free civil society. On the other hand, in addition to the principle of professionalism, the market-oriented media also cater to the psychology of the audience to varying degrees for the sake of market competition, which is manifested in the sensationalism of some reports.
Since China joined the international Internet in 1994, online communication has become the main communication channel. From 2010, the web 2.0 communication mode represented by Weibo has been flourishing in China and has been noted for its outstanding performance in a series of hot events. Nowadays, online media has become the de facto “first media” in large and medium-sized cities, among young and middle-aged people, and among groups with higher income and education, and these people are also the mainstream people who form social opinions (Su, 2019). Coupled with the enlightening effect of market-oriented media and the internet, people are increasingly aware of and pursuing their own rights, and they are constantly criticising and demanding the government to provide better public service.
Since the reformation, China’s economic system has transformed from a planned economy to a market economy, releasing enormous productivity and bringing about rapid growth in social wealth. The holding of world-class events such as the Winter Olympics has also greatly boosted Chinese self-confidence and national pride. Official media propaganda fully demonstrates this achievement, shaping the image of China with key words such as ‘harmonious times’ and ‘China’s century’.
On the other hand, the market-oriented media and the internet present a different image of China. The gap between the rich and the poor is prominent, polarisation is becoming more and more serious, and corruption and privilege have become common. The wealth generated by economic development is concentrated in a few upper social classes, while the environmental and resource costs are borne by society as a whole. The lower classes, due to their vulnerability, are the biggest “payers” of economic and social development (Guo, 2015). The phenomenon of ‘crowd watching’ caused by the internet has further intensified social conflicts, leading to a series of tragic events. The conservative nature and the lack of integrity of some government departments in handling daily affairs have led to the increasing distrust of the government on the internet (e.g., the public backlash to zero-covid policy during the Urumqi fire incident 2022 ). It was mixed with the hatred of officials and the rich, which put the government in a huge passive position.
Faced with such a complex circumstance, both officials and the public often interpret information selectively from their own positions and interests, thus creating a split between the “cognitive field” and the “public opinion field” (Jia & Han, 2020).
(2) Weibo communication challenges social management
Weibo communication brings challenges to social management in three aspects: information dissemination, public opinion formation and social mobilisation.
Multiple sources of information challenge information control.
In terms of information dissemination, the openness of Weibo makes the old means of information control largely ineffective. Everyone could be media, and can break news and comment on any social event. The convenient forwarding function on the platform accelerated the spread of Information, making it difficult for the government to censor the information. In many current events, the new mode of reporting - ‘revealing news on Weibo + deeper physical searching in other forums’ - has been formed. For various incidents related to pandemic prevention last year, participants sent Weibo posts at the scene, stirring up the emotions of hundreds of millions of internet users who were not present, intensifying the complex situation of public opinion and amplifying the spreading effect of the crisis. Weibo has also become a “backyard” for journalists, as some information filtered out by traditional media is often re-released on Weibo and then given more space to spread due to the lack of coverage on relevant information by traditional media (Jia & Han, 2020).
According to American psychologist G.W. Alpert’s gossip formula: R = i × a (gossip circulation = importance of the issue × ambiguity of the evidence), the absence of official voices or the lack of details of their reporting will intensify the proliferation of gossip. The traditional practice of some local governments to control information in negative events for the sake of “maintaining stability” is not only ineffective after encountering the challenge of multi-media dissemination, but more importantly, it gives the public the impression that the government intends to cover up information and facts, reducing the transparency and credibility of the government, and making it difficult for the government to gain public trust and support in major events in the future (Hu et al., 2020).
The pluralism of public opinion challenges the uniformity of public opinion.
Public opinion is the sum of public attitudes, opinions and emotions about the real society and various phenomena in it, with consistency, intensity and continuity, influencing social development. There is a mixture of rational and irrational components (West, 2017).
American scholar Mark E. Warren once wrote “More components of democracy will lead to more scrutiny of authority and less trust.” Due to the intervention of social media such as Weibo, the situation of “uniform public opinion”, which was once dominated by official media, has changed significantly in recent years, and the plurality of public opinion has become the norm (Sullivan, 2013). This is mainly due to the following reasons: audiences’ comprehension and knowledge levels are increasing and they start seeking information and making judgments independently; online pluralistic information is competing and challenging the information dissemination and the public opinion guidance from official media; opinion leaders on the internet have millions or even tens of millions of followers, and some of them are influenced by Western universal values and often tend to criticise the government. Their fresh and sharp views are favourable to groups of the public, thus getting popularised widely, defeating the effectiveness of the governmental public opinion guidance. At the same time, Weibo users actively customise the information they receive by choosing the ‘follow’ mode on the platform. It nullified the public opinion tactics in previous propaganda which used to win consumers’ minds by pushing similar information to them on a large scale, making it difficult for the organisation’s public opinion guidance to be recommended to the target audience and digested by them.
In fact, in a series of major events, the official mainstream media and Weibo platform have formed two information and opinion fields, and the differences in between are tearing apart the social consensus on values (Pang et al., 2022). One is the official public opinion field formed by mainstream media, representing a prosperous scene with rapid economic and social development; the other is the civil public opinion field formed by market media and self-media, which describes corrupt officials, moral decline and frequent mass incidents.
Take the 7·23 Wenzhou train accident which happened in China a few years ago as an example, Weibo netizens were not only the first to report the news, but also focused on a rich perspective - from the rescue situation, the search for people, spontaneous blood donation, to the truth of the accident and relevant accountabilities. Most of the market-oriented media also took a harsh tone tracing responsibility - the civil opinion field shared the same voice. Compared with the rapid all-round coverage on the internet, the institutional media performed awkwardly (Su, 2019). Some national newspapers, on July 24, didn’t put previous day’s top stories about the incident on their front pages. Some media issued commentary articles such as ‘High-speed rail is the self-torture China must go through’ and ‘Looking at the superiority of China’s socialist system from the Wenzhou train chase’ to guide public opinion, which were instead generally criticised by the public. As Guan et al. (2014) highlighted, on many topical social issues, online public is “getting more and more courageous”; while some official media have repeatedly “lost their eyesight and voice”, falling into ideological stagnation. However, it should be noted that the ‘self-directed’ civil opinion field is sometimes chaotic, overloaded by grief and hostility, with online rumours flying around; while the ‘self-regulated’ official opinion field often tends to marginalise itself, with the government continuing to lose its credibility. Thus, the government and mainstream media should pay more efforts to reduce the split between these two public opinion fields and achieve a peaceful integration of them.
Social mobilisation challenges social management.
Social mobilisation refers to the process by which people’s attitudes, values and expectations change and develop under the influence of certain persistent social factors (Barnidge, 2022).
The challenge of social mobilisation Weibo posed comes from the powerful self-organisation ability of social media. Weibo establishes social links through ‘follower-followers’ relationships, connecting individuals in disparate groups into a whole that can act in unison. Weibo’s hashtag mechanism makes it possible to decentralise and anonymise social movements. By adopting a unified avatar or hashtag, internet users can easily discover their own kind, thus establishing social links, initiating social actions, and challenging the existing social order. The anonymity, decentralisation and wide participation of the internet make it difficult for traditional social management methods to work. The explosive proliferation of Weibo content has also greatly increased the efficiency of social mobilisation and compressed the time and space for government regulation.
(3) Government’s response to the challenges
Within the Weibo regime complex, the primary private actors - market-orientated media and user-generated self-media - contribute significantly to netizens’ freedom of expression, which effectively supervises the government’s administrative capacities and information dissemination abilities. However, it is also concerning that with the great convenience to post information but the lack of a complete regulatory system, Weibo can be used to attack the government in a malevolent way by those with multiple interests, such as commercial interests, thus harming the government’s image and lowering its credibility to the public. A public system seemingly monitoring the government but in fact formed by fake information which could even be produced by online ghostwriters will disturb normal social order.
As a stakeholder, the government wants to address the current situation in order to achieve its initial expectation of strengthening its Weibo governance, mainly through three aspects: Public opinion management; Institutional change and real-name registration (RNR) policy; Regulation of private enterprises — the empowerment-control nexus.
Firstly, considering Weibo’s powerful publicity and ability to circulate information with unprecedented speed and scope, the central party has been running many anti-rumor campaigns targeting those who spread false information so as to tighten its grip on political expression online. Several opinion-leading ‘Big Vs’ with large numbers of followers were arrested and detained, with the law raising the possibility of three years’ imprisonment on the publication of defamatory statements under specific conditions (SPC, 2013).
Meanwhile, the government also regulates ‘Weibo Hot Search List’ to ensure its content loyalty and manage the information flow, such as tasking the managers to block certain sensitive words to avoid the circulation of information harmful to their political propaganda. In recent times, the state has blocked over 3000 terms related to COVID-19 on the social network so as to shape the discourse surrounding the pandemic (Ngai et al., 2022).
The keyword censorship has become more and more stringent under the government’s administration. Almost all government agencies have inherent abilities to modify and expand the sensitive words database nowadays, which is frequently changed over the time (Sun & Zhao, 2021). According to the database, the algorithm system conducts the first content review of the platform, followed by a manual review under government supervision. Compared to regular users who are only manually censored if they hit a sensitive word, those who have repeatedly hit the database words, or those with a plethora of followers known as ‘Big Vs’, are subjected to more rigorous censorship - all their posts are manually scrutinised to ensure their consistency and compliance to the government rules.
These events likely drew attention to more private social media platforms such as WeChat. It has been preferred because its design unintentionally increases the difficulty of spreading information on a large scale and engaging with strangers. The nature of its function in sustaining close social relationships aligns with the state’s need to maintain social stability.
Secondly, the central party led by Xi Jinping has simplified institutional structures by streamlining multiple regulatory agencies and concentrating power in one unifying governing body – Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). This has given the office more authority to enforce the RNR policy on social networks which mandates that all the users sign up using their true names. The policy allows the government to regulate user behaviour by gathering data from user databases created by their online behaviours, such as their Weibo posts.
The implications of the RNR system on Weibo are two-folded. First off, the system actively generates and collects data from a dynamic network of advanced technologies that are pervasive in the lives of citizens, effectively expanding the state power and strengthening its monitoring on the users. This essentially goes beyond the conventional one-way surveillance system, in which top-down censorship is normally carried out by a central agency. Secondly, it complements the national social credit system established in 2014 aiming to create various benefits and punishments for the behaviour of citizens, companies and other entities (Han & Shao, 2022). In essence, that means Weibo users need to be ‘well-behaved’ and to have a good record under data-assessment of RNR policy to receive the benefits offered by the state, such as priority health care and low-interest loans in the aspect of individuals, which, in a broader context, represent economic prosperity and material welfare. It prolongs a political ideology in the Chinese state government that frequently places more emphasis on the provision of welfare or reputation than on civil rights.
Thirdly, the government tried to promote official governmental media accounts on Weibo to publish news stories, and issued multiple notices prohibiting journalists from filing stories based on unverified information and posting them online (Zhao & Hu, 2023). However, these attempts to rein in the public discourse appeared less successfully because given the freedom of expression theory of Weibo and its unprecedented information delivery capabilities, such events have always been immediately picked up by online news outlets and widely circulated on Weibo. Consequently, the state also tried to prevent non-official media organisations from conducting interviews but it didn’t work well because encouraged by the Weibo environment, independent reporting is growing rapidly nowadays, creating public space for discussions.
It thus illustrates that although it seems the government has tightened the Weibo speech, the paradox is that the government relies on the economic interests of such private internet or media companies motivated above all by financial gain. This means many regulatory measures that stand in the way of profit making have not been fully implemented, such as the rule that only allows the publication of interview-based articles produced by the state-media on social networks, e.g., Weibo. Evidently, the government chooses to coexist with it, enjoying the benefits the companies bring. The complex and multi-faceted interactions between the state and private commercial organisations can be described as an empowerment-control nexus.
4. Conclusion
In summary, it can be found that the interests of the actors from different complex layers interweave together, causing two opposing public opinion fields in the digital system. One of them is a free public opinion field but filled with chaos under disinformation or biassed information, with another one being an official public opinion field as a result of rigorous government censorship. An ethics framework therefore is needed to upgrade both of the fields, truly serving the most prominent public interest.
As Cerf (2012) argued, the technologists who belong to the inner layer of the complex not only have a tremendous obligation to provide users internet access and empower them, but also are supposed to guarantee the safety of users online, minimising the risks they can probably encounter on the platform. They should optimise the platform’s functions to protect users’ human rights, including their freedom of expression, such as by highlighting the platform’s social mobilisation function and popularising its ethical use. As we seek to advance the development in Weibo and its application in society, it is crucial to make sure the media, either official or private, remains journalistic integrity, with the public improving their digital literacy to be able to make informed decisions in the digital system. Most importantly, when the government no longer strictly controls but releases information in a timely manner, gossip on Weibo will lose its market; when the government media can honestly express people’s voices, actively respond to people’s demands, and improve the openness and transparency of information, instead of attempting to completely manipulate users by violating their privacy, the two public opinion fields will find consensus, and the expected effect of public opinion guidance will be achieved.
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