Online Gypsy
A few days ago someone on weibo，the largest (and twitter-like) social media platform in China, called for a two-day boycott against weibo. The message was deleted again and again and still went mildly viral. The boycott is on May, 8th and My, 9th, homonym of "I don't want to"(我不) and “I just don't want to"(我就不).
It has been quite a while that I, along with many of my friends, grow disappointment on weibo. It's not just they blew my 9-year account last July without any warning or explanation. It's getting wrose in so many aspects: shovel disgusting advertisements on my nose, for one thing. By disgusting I mean bodyshaming, filled with all kinds of bias, loan ads with traps of high interests, and more. For others, sina weibo learn to get money from the bigshots and clear the messages they belive will jeopardise their market by deleting entries and blowing accounts. They would probably sell practically anything from their ranking system to a user's intellectual output. There are less intersting information to be found on weibo these days.
And when there are discussions of social, national, and international affairs, nationalism and hate speeches are louder than ever before. Sure it happens on any platform of social media, but the voice of the other side is suppressed more than ever on weibo. I've been using weibo for nine years and I saw the changes.
The trigger of my personal protest is the banning of ao3, archive of our own. Ao3 was missed in the previous bannings. I guess the authorties didn't consider it as any threat to ideology, not yet. But this February, right during the Covid-19 outbreak, the access to ao3 was ruined by ugly capitalism and its mad dogs. Again, many stories from many aspects. The fact is that some super-traffic star's fans reported ao3 claiming they don't like what one fan of their own wrote about the star. The writer wrote erotic content on ao3 to avoid the domestic censorship, and then put the link on weibo. Funny part is that other fans knew weibo was too big to report, so instead, they reported ao3-not randomly reported but in an organized way. (Another side of the story is that the star and his workshop arranged this reproting to wash off his origin as an actor in TV based on a slash novel, which is not very "mainstream" in ideology) It evetually became a war bewteen freelance writers and artists who found it hard to find anywhere to express (not exactlly politically, we just wanted to draw lovely tits and butts, and they use AI to detect any pic with large patches of skin-like colors) and capitalists who run the behemoth social media and who have close connections with the government. Writers and artists produce valuable content on social media and they are used and abused by the social media as slaves and scapegoat. I think that's what leads to this seemingly sudden boycott on weibo.
Many of my friends on weibo are looking for an alternative choice. Finding a substitute is hard. A less greedy, more self-restricted, free-er social media is getting out of the question. But protesting and leaving wroth a try. I don't know how far weibo would go. It is still a place for people to discuss social affairs, a narrow way for someone to cry justice, be it a doctor wronged before the outbreak of Covid-19, or a young woman who were sexually abused by a lawyer when she was 14. I don't think I will quit weibo soon. But it's getting wrose, as I said. And it's getting wrose than wrose for writers and artists, and anyone who would prefer to share, instead of to yell and bully.
So to quit weibo, I am using LJ again(though not very often)
Just registered on twitter as wasabi
registered on tumblr as wasabisunny
registered on ao3 as sunnywasabi
And as long as vpn works, I may gradually move from the domestic social media weibo, which is a sad turn. I'm proud of my mother language. I love the richness of Chinese language, simplified or traditional. Sure I can use Chinese on twitter or tumblr or LJ, but it's like wandering and somehow, at the brink of illegal laddering. I used to joke that we may be oneline gypsies, and we are.
I'm not sure what will happen to my weibo account after the temporary boycott. Maybe nothing happens. Maybe they lower my "credit point". Maybe another account bites the dust. It was not like this 15 years ago when I started to use LJ. And it will not end like this.
see if i can post a pic...
It has been quite a while that I, along with many of my friends, grow disappointment on weibo. It's not just they blew my 9-year account last July without any warning or explanation. It's getting wrose in so many aspects: shovel disgusting advertisements on my nose, for one thing. By disgusting I mean bodyshaming, filled with all kinds of bias, loan ads with traps of high interests, and more. For others, sina weibo learn to get money from the bigshots and clear the messages they belive will jeopardise their market by deleting entries and blowing accounts. They would probably sell practically anything from their ranking system to a user's intellectual output. There are less intersting information to be found on weibo these days.
And when there are discussions of social, national, and international affairs, nationalism and hate speeches are louder than ever before. Sure it happens on any platform of social media, but the voice of the other side is suppressed more than ever on weibo. I've been using weibo for nine years and I saw the changes.
The trigger of my personal protest is the banning of ao3, archive of our own. Ao3 was missed in the previous bannings. I guess the authorties didn't consider it as any threat to ideology, not yet. But this February, right during the Covid-19 outbreak, the access to ao3 was ruined by ugly capitalism and its mad dogs. Again, many stories from many aspects. The fact is that some super-traffic star's fans reported ao3 claiming they don't like what one fan of their own wrote about the star. The writer wrote erotic content on ao3 to avoid the domestic censorship, and then put the link on weibo. Funny part is that other fans knew weibo was too big to report, so instead, they reported ao3-not randomly reported but in an organized way. (Another side of the story is that the star and his workshop arranged this reproting to wash off his origin as an actor in TV based on a slash novel, which is not very "mainstream" in ideology) It evetually became a war bewteen freelance writers and artists who found it hard to find anywhere to express (not exactlly politically, we just wanted to draw lovely tits and butts, and they use AI to detect any pic with large patches of skin-like colors) and capitalists who run the behemoth social media and who have close connections with the government. Writers and artists produce valuable content on social media and they are used and abused by the social media as slaves and scapegoat. I think that's what leads to this seemingly sudden boycott on weibo.
Many of my friends on weibo are looking for an alternative choice. Finding a substitute is hard. A less greedy, more self-restricted, free-er social media is getting out of the question. But protesting and leaving wroth a try. I don't know how far weibo would go. It is still a place for people to discuss social affairs, a narrow way for someone to cry justice, be it a doctor wronged before the outbreak of Covid-19, or a young woman who were sexually abused by a lawyer when she was 14. I don't think I will quit weibo soon. But it's getting wrose, as I said. And it's getting wrose than wrose for writers and artists, and anyone who would prefer to share, instead of to yell and bully.
So to quit weibo, I am using LJ again(though not very often)
Just registered on twitter as wasabi
registered on tumblr as wasabisunny
registered on ao3 as sunnywasabi
And as long as vpn works, I may gradually move from the domestic social media weibo, which is a sad turn. I'm proud of my mother language. I love the richness of Chinese language, simplified or traditional. Sure I can use Chinese on twitter or tumblr or LJ, but it's like wandering and somehow, at the brink of illegal laddering. I used to joke that we may be oneline gypsies, and we are.
I'm not sure what will happen to my weibo account after the temporary boycott. Maybe nothing happens. Maybe they lower my "credit point". Maybe another account bites the dust. It was not like this 15 years ago when I started to use LJ. And it will not end like this.
see if i can post a pic...