Jakarta Globe – AFP, May 18, 2014
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| People walk in front of a screen showing propaganda displays near the Great Hall of the People at Beijing's Tiananmen Square, in this file picture taken Nov. 7, 2012. (Reuters Photo/Carlos Barria/Files) |
Beijing.
China’s Communist authorities ban their own people from accessing major global
social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more. But when it
comes to self-promotion, they are increasingly keen users themselves.
The
official news agency Xinhua, the Communist Party’s official mouthpiece the
People’s Daily and state broadcaster CCTV all have Twitter accounts, as do a
host of city and provincial authorities.
When the
city of Hangzhou, renowned for its lakes and canals, looked to raise its
international profile it turned to Facebook, the world’s most-popular social
network.
China’s
Internet users, who now number 618 million, have been blocked from using it
since 2009.
But the
city’s “Modern Marco Polo” competition — akin to Australia’s “best job in the
world” contests — involves no fewer than six Facebook apps.
The winner,
to be announced Tuesday, will receive 40,000 euros ($55,000) and a two-week
trip to Hangzhou, in exchange for promoting the city on Facebook and Twitter
for a year.
Michael
Cavanaugh, a consultant for British-based PR Agency One, which has been
promoting the contest, told AFP increasing official use of such sites was
“inevitable.” But he declined to say how the winner was expected to post to
them from within China.
Great
Firewall of China
China’s
Communist authorities maintain a tight grip on expression — both on and offline
— fearful of any dissent that could spiral into a challenge to one-party rule.
Some
Chinese Internet users and businesses use VPNs, or virtual private networks, to
bypass the vast censorship apparatus known as the Great Firewall, and state-run
media often use foreign bureaux to accomplish the same goal.
Hangzhou
itself used a digital agency in Hong Kong, where Facebook is not blocked, to
administer its contest — an increasing trend by cities and provinces within
China’s borders.
The social
media giant is actively seeking business in the country.
“We want to
help tourism agencies in China tell the rest of the world about the fabulous
things in China that are really not that well-understood,” Vaughan Smith,
Facebook’s vice president of corporate development, told a Beijing audience
last month.
Facebook is
reportedly in talks to open a sales office in the Chinese capital, and in
recent weeks the company has quietly posted Beijing-based job openings on its
website, including one for a client solutions manager to “focus on planning,
implementing, and optimising advertising campaign spending for the world’s
top-tier advertisers”.
Its
executives are making increasingly frequent appearances at high-profile events
in China, and the company’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg drew
international headlines last September when she met the head of China’s State
Council Information Office, which oversees propaganda efforts.
Google also
seeks advertisers in China and has three offices on the mainland, but pulled
out its servers in 2010 in a row about censorship.
Twitter,
which is a prominent advocate for free speech online, has shown few signs of
interest in setting up in China, although the company’s CEO Dick Costolo met
Shanghai government officials during his first China visit in March.
Facebook
representatives declined interview requests about the company’s China business.
Duncan
Clark, chairman of Beijing-based tech consultancy BDA, said Chinese local
authorities had huge budgets and their tourism advertisements were probably
lucrative for the multi-billion-dollar firm.
However,
Facebook was unlikely to see them as a way of gaining access to Chinese users,
Clark said.
“There’s
kind of a common sense, logical middle ground where Facebook and China will
agree to trade with each other,” he told AFP. “This is business sense. I
wouldn’t expect that to change.”
Netizens:
‘discriminatory’
Other
promotions include the “Rebirth of the Terracotta Warrior” Facebook contest
launched last month by Shaanxi province, home to the tomb of China’s first
emperor Qin Shihuang.
A “Chengdu
Pambassador” campaign gave contestants a chance to become a “guest panda
keeper” at the southwestern city’s giant panda base through a series of
Facebook activities.
But critics
of Chinese censorship say such schemes give Beijing a soft-power boost through
sleight-of-hand.
A
co-founder of anti-censorship website GreatFire.org who uses the pseudonym
Charlie Smith told AFP: “I think the average Western netizen doesn’t put two
and two together and realise actually, these websites are blocked in China.
“That helps
China, for sure, because it gives this impression that Facebook is actually
open and free for the people who don’t know that it isn’t,” he added.
The double
standards have not escaped the notice of Chinese web users.
The Shaanxi
provincial government announced the opening of its tourist board’s Facebook,
YouTube and Twitter accounts in a posting on Weibo — a Chinese version of
Twitter — in February.
Several
users angrily responded that they were unable to open the links, the Southern
Metropolis Daily reported.
“We’re not
advocating that domestic tourists visit these pages,” a provincial government
representative told the paper, drawing even greater fury.
“This way
of thinking is discriminatory against Chinese people,” wrote one online
commentator. “It shows a lack of understanding of the basic rules of tourism
promotion. It’s very stupid and quite laughable.”
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