China's Love-Hate Relationship With Foreign Social Media Platforms

In February 2021, mainland Chinese users of the app Clubhouse reported no longer being able to gain access. The ban followed a surge in Chinese-language conversations hosted on the platform about a wide range of issues, including politically sensitive topics such as the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, state security, the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, as well as sexuality, romantic relationships, and more quotidian subjects.

Clubhouse, an invitation-only audio-chat social networking app, first launched in the iPhone app store in April 2020. It has grown swiftly to be worth an estimated $1 billion with around 2 million users worldwide (with mainland Chinese users accounting for only a small portion). Users can create, join, and moderate “rooms” hosting conversations on wide-ranging topics. Once the virtual conference room closes, the conversation disappears.

In China’s case, a flurry of users flocked to the app, seizing the opportunity to listen in on and participate in civil conversations on topics that are generally excluded from public fora. Invitations to Clubhouse were being sold for upwards of 300 yuan ($46). And yet, as more Chinese users joined the platform, it was only a matter of time before Chinese authorities clamped down, even if the users represented only a small cross-section of the digitally active Chinese population. As the founder of China Digital Times told the New York Times, “Clubhouse is exactly what Chinese censors don’t want to see in online communication – a massive, freewheeling conversation in which people are talking openly. It’s also a reminder that when there is an opportunity, many Chinese have a desperate need to talk to each other and to hear different view points.”

Many scholars and analysts noted that the short-lived spike in Chinese participants on Clubhouse is indicative not only of the nuanced views held by mainlanders, but also their desire to engage in unfiltered speech. Human Rights Watch’s Yaqiu Wang wrote that brief blooming of Clubhouse was “a testament to the extent people in China – if given a chance – want to communicate.” Beyond revealing the diversity of views and curiosity on wide-ranging topics, “the episode also showed how the sharing of compelling personal experiences and credible first-hand accounts can help change perceptions and undermine deceptive CCP narratives,” writes Sarah Cook, research director for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan at Freedom House Cook.

Clubhouse is not alone in being locked out of mainland China. But to its users, Clubhouse felt different from other foreign social media platforms. Some have noted that the new app’s features – including real voices, the presence of moderators, real-time responses, and the ephemeral nature of the conversations – appeared to be more conducive for civil, open dialogue compared to text-based platforms. “What made clubhouse special? maybe because it was limited to a select few. maybe because it was audio and it felt intimate and personal. or perhaps what made it great was not so much technical, but social: a place where we did our best to put ourselves in the shoes of the other,” reflected Lokan Tsui, a scholar, activist, and professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) on Twitter.

All the major foreign social media platforms are now inaccessible on the Chinese internet, unless one has access to a stable virtual private network (VPN). YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook were all banned in mid-2009. Instagram was censored in 2014, followed by WhatsApp in 2017. Even Pinterest, an image sharing platform sometimes described as a visual search engine, was banned in 2017. For a time, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg lobbied Chinese elites in hopes of some sort of opening of the Chinese social media environment, to no avail. He has since turned to making the case that Chinese social media platforms – his competitors – are a threat to U.S. businesses. 

While bans of foreign social media sites were imposed under the leadership of Chinese presidents Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping, the overall media environment has grown increasingly constrained since Xi’s ascent. Not only has there been greater centralization of control over the media, with more stringent regulations and new laws enacted, but there has also been a significant tightening of the gray zone – the space in which discussions on certain topics are semi-permissible – noted Maria Repnikova, an assistant professor in global communication at Georgia State University in an email interview. Crackdowns on the flow of information from outside of China span from traditional journalism (blocking outlets and/or expelling individual journalists) to new social media apps, as well as VPNs used to access websites behind the Great Firewall.

Denying the vast majority of Chinese citizens easy access to foreign social media is motivated by the leadership’s desire to preempt any kind of political crisis and quash any sensitive discussions that could spiral into a social movement that might threaten Chinese Communist Party rule. As Beijing strives to ensure stability at home, it swiftly blocks foreign social media platforms and actively monitors and censors domestic equivalents.

As new foreign social media apps are developed and gain popularity, their ban in mainland China is expected. And yet, as Chinese citizens lose access to these platforms (without a stable VPN, that is), Chinese diplomats, Foreign Ministry personnel, and dignitaries are engaging more and more on Western social media. These platforms are seen as a “useful tool to showcase China’s more proactive, confident voice,” said Repnikova. These Western platforms enable Beijing to not only demonstrate China’s “vigor, strength, and confidence externally,” but also bolster nationalism domestically, she added.

More recently, these foreign platforms seem to have become not only a communication tool, but a space in which China can seek to alter its narrative.

In China, censorship of social media on domestic platforms like WeChat and Weibo is partial, designed to thwart threats to social stability, while simultaneously gathering information through e-governance initiatives and cheering on the regime. Chinese engagement on foreign sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube has diversified to include more strident “wolf warrior” diplomacy as well as misinformation campaigns, in many ways applying tools it had used domestically to the international sphere.

Twitter has removed hundreds of fake accounts linked to Chinese disinformation networks; other platforms have taken similar action. Pro-Beijing users have sought to manipulate the ranking of content on Google’s search engine results, Reddit, and YouTube. Moreover, the content generated by these disinformation networks not only increasingly aligns with Chinese state narratives, but covers a widening range of themes from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang, to U.S.-China rivalry, arms control, and economic development, according to a new 2021 report by Graphika.

To China’s government, foreign social media is another instrument for narrative construction for international audiences. Domestically, however, those same platforms represent a vehicle that could facilitate and magnify threats to the party’s leadership. In addition to the political motivations behind banning foreign social media, there is a secondary, commercial incentive. Chinese media, both in its traditional and social network forms, have shifted online. The Chinese government, though primarily concerned with the maintenance of stability, also encourages indigenous firms to compete in the global media environment. As such, these bans also represent some degree of market protectionism. Because blocking foreign social media serves a dual purpose, said Repnikova “this policy is unlikely to change anytime soon.”