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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

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Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.

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Speaker 3: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. Tracy remember how

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Speaker 3: like in the late.

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Speaker 2: Nineties, like the Internet was starting to become a thing,

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Speaker 2: and people thought it would bring like liberalism and democracy utopia.

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Speaker 2: I totally bought into that, Like I you know, people

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Speaker 2: look back at that and like, oh, they were naive,

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Speaker 2: Like I don't blame them, Like, I think I bought

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Speaker 2: into that too.

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Speaker 4: I mean, there was something very wholesome about the sort

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Speaker 4: of mid nineties internet culture where you could go to

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Speaker 4: everyone's like little individual blog and people were mostly talking

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Speaker 4: about their hobbies and things like that, or at least

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Speaker 4: that was my experience of it, probably colored by the

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Speaker 4: fact that I was in middle school at the time,

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Speaker 4: but it seemed very innocent.

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Speaker 3: It was very cool.

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Speaker 2: It was very decentralized, right, So now we associate the

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Speaker 2: Internet with a handful of tech oligarchs that control various kingdoms.

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Speaker 2: Maybe you could even say within the Internet, whether it's

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Speaker 2: the medic Kingdom or the Amazon Kingdom or whatever. But

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Speaker 2: it was very decentralized. Everyone with their own little sites

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Speaker 2: cobbled together and so forth, and I totally bought that idea.

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Speaker 3: It's just like, Oh, we're all going to talk to

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Speaker 3: each other, we're going to work.

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Speaker 2: Things out, and there's no way that authoritarian governments could

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Speaker 2: ever control this, and it will finally realize the true

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Speaker 2: promise of democracy and all that stuff.

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Speaker 3: I totally bought into it.

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Speaker 4: Fast forward to twenty twenty six. How would you describe

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Speaker 4: the Internet now?

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Speaker 2: I mean, the word that always comes to my mind,

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Speaker 2: and there are many words, is just this sort of

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Speaker 2: like sheer like sort of tribalism and conflictualism on every level,

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Speaker 2: right nationalism, racism, bigotry, anti semitism, sexism, et cetera. It's

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Speaker 2: just like riven with that, it's riven with conflict and

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Speaker 2: so forth. It's heavily centralized. All of the sort of

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Speaker 2: utilh and promise I'm like, didn't really pan out that way.

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Speaker 4: I would say Cesspool one too. You have to try

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Speaker 4: really really hard nowadays to find good and useful corners

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Speaker 4: of the Internet. I'm not saying that they're not out there,

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Speaker 4: but it is interesting how far we've deviated from that

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Speaker 4: initial utopian premise of the Internet. The other thing that's happening.

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Speaker 4: We're recording this on let's see January twenty seventh. What's

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Speaker 4: interesting is that we're starting to have even more discussion

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Speaker 4: about the power of the platform. So over the weekend

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Speaker 4: there have been some allegations that TikTok, for instance, is

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Speaker 4: censoring Minneapolis video or video of the Minneapolis shooting. And

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Speaker 4: that's just after the new ownership took control of the platform, right,

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Speaker 4: so they spun off the US business, and now it

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Speaker 4: has all these new owners and people are starting to

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Speaker 4: talk about, well, maybe they're censoring or even if they're

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Speaker 4: not directly censoring some stuff, maybe the algorithm is influencing

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Speaker 4: what people see totally.

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Speaker 2: And then there's one other dimension before we getting into

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Speaker 2: the conversation that I think is very important here, which

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Speaker 2: is that the Internet is splintering geographically. Right, So we've

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Speaker 2: known for a long time. Of course, people talk about

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Speaker 2: the firewall in China and the Chinese Internet, but it's

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Speaker 2: not just China, right. We see the UK establishing its

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Speaker 2: own rules, We see Australia establishing its own rules. We

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Speaker 2: saw the thing a couple of years ago with Brazil

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Speaker 2: temporarily banning Twitter, et cetera. And so there's all these

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Speaker 2: sort of intermingling of digital platforms and national sovereignty, and

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Speaker 2: I really do believe to some extent that a lot

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Speaker 2: of the leaders around the world are looking at China

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Speaker 2: and a seemingly more controlled Internet like with jealousy, right,

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Speaker 2: and oh, we would love to have this level of

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Speaker 2: control over our sort of town square, et cetera. And

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Speaker 2: you know, some countries of the First Amendment, so that

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Speaker 2: makes it very tough, et cetera. But it really feels

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Speaker 2: like there's so many aspects of the Internet that are

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Speaker 2: sort of not panning out, and people like, we want

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Speaker 2: to constrict what people could see, we want to tighten

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Speaker 2: the algorithms, we want to curb some kind of discourse,

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Speaker 2: et cetera.

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Speaker 3: And I think this is going to be one of

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Speaker 3: the biggest stories of our time.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, with China specifically, there's still a big question, which

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Speaker 4: is whether or not the censorship of the Internet basically

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Speaker 4: allows it to act as a sort of like safety

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Speaker 4: valve that lets people, you know, blow off some steam,

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Speaker 4: but not enough steam to actually threaten the regime over there,

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Speaker 4: or whether it's actually a tool or could be a

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Speaker 4: tool of social change. Because people are to some extent

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Speaker 4: allowed to say some stuff. I think that question is

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Speaker 4: like still kind of unanswered.

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Speaker 3: Well, I'm very excited to say.

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Speaker 2: We really do have the perfect guest, someone who has

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Speaker 2: written a fascinating new book all about the Chinese Internet.

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Speaker 2: We're going to be speaking with Yiling Lui is the

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Speaker 2: author of the new book The Wall Dancers. Thank you

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Speaker 2: so much for coming on odd.

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Speaker 5: Lots, Thanks so much for having me.

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Speaker 3: What is this book and why is it called The

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Speaker 3: Wall Dancers?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, so the Wall Dancers. The comes from this term

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Speaker 5: in Chinese which is called dancing in shackles, and it

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Speaker 5: was first used in the early two thousands by journalists

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Speaker 5: to describe what it means to write and report under

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Speaker 5: state constraints, but slowly became viral as a term that

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Speaker 5: was used by I've seen like software engineers use it,

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Speaker 5: musicians use it, science fiction writers use it. And it

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Speaker 5: really resonated with me, this idea of the dance, because

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Speaker 5: it captured this idea that to live and navigate Chinese

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Speaker 5: society is a dance. It's this dynamic push and pull

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Speaker 5: between state and society. It means living in this place

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Speaker 5: that's on one hand rich with innovation and yet on

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Speaker 5: the other hand, rigidly constrained, and I came to see

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Speaker 5: that this dance was most dynamic on the Internet. What

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Speaker 5: we know is the space behind the great firewall, and

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Speaker 5: the people that I thought were really good and adept

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Speaker 5: at navigating this terrain, I came to know them and

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Speaker 5: call them dancers.

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Speaker 4: So this was the really interesting thing about your book

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Speaker 4: and the reason we wanted to talk to you. You

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Speaker 4: tell this story of the Chinese Internet through the perspective

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Speaker 4: of individuals, rather than say, the Internet platforms that have

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Speaker 4: come to dominate the space, or even from a sort

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Speaker 4: of state centric point of view. What do you get

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Speaker 4: out of interviewing or following individuals versus taking that other approach,

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Speaker 4: which you know there are plenty of books out there

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Speaker 4: about the rise of Wabo and stuff like that.

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Speaker 5: I think the main reason behind this choice was if

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Speaker 5: you look at Western news headlines or headlines in general

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Speaker 5: about China and trades's technology, it almost always falls under

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Speaker 5: one of two binaries. It's reduced to very simple terms.

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Speaker 5: One is China the kind of sprawling economic juggernaut that's

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Speaker 5: building humanoids and high speed rail and it's place of

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Speaker 5: boundless opportunity. And then you have the like techno authoritary

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Speaker 5: and oppressive regime where mindless people have no agency of

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Speaker 5: their own. And I think the big issue here is

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Speaker 5: that the Chinese Internet is always framed through and seen

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Speaker 5: through the lens of American national security and economic interests.

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Speaker 5: And I wanted to force people out of these tropes.

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Speaker 5: And the way to see kind of China and the

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Speaker 5: Chinese Internet and all its complexity and contradictions is through

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Speaker 5: people and through individual lives.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you start the book by telling the story of

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Speaker 2: a gay man who is able through the Internet to

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Speaker 2: build community, find people eventually at a time when, of

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Speaker 2: course there was extreme repression. Homosexuality was I think illegal

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Speaker 2: at the time. You know, again, this seems both in

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Speaker 2: China and the US what probably a lot of people

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Speaker 2: were very hopeful for with the Internet, this idea that

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Speaker 2: people were going to be able to find community, like

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Speaker 2: minded individuals find acceptance in these digital spaces. And I

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Speaker 2: suppose in many cases since this happened, But it is

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Speaker 2: interesting how in both the global context and the Chinese

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Speaker 2: specific context there were similar stories being told.

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Speaker 3: There were similar hopes.

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Speaker 5: Definitely, I think of the story of the Internet in China,

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Speaker 5: at least as a romance. But I'm realizing, you know,

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Speaker 5: as you discussed earlier, the story of the global Internet

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Speaker 5: was also a romance. The story of the World Wide

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Speaker 5: Web was also a romance. I certainly bought into the

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Speaker 5: narrative that you bought into. I thought we were on

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Speaker 5: this like teleological arc too, towards liberalization, and I think

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Speaker 5: a lot of people bought into that narrative, this idea

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Speaker 5: that you know, the Chinese Internet, despite the fact that

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Speaker 5: the firewall existed very early, was going to push people

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Speaker 5: towards greater openness, greater freedom, greater connection, and it would

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Speaker 5: just keep going on from there and there.

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Speaker 4: So talk to us about what is and isn't allowed

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Speaker 4: on the Chinese Internet then, because as you say, it's

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Speaker 4: more nuanced than just like outright censorship in many ways,

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Speaker 4: although sometimes it is just out censorship and you can't

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Speaker 4: say a specific word like tan and men or something

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Speaker 4: like that. And I remember, actually now that i'm thinking

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Speaker 4: about it, in the early two thousands, when I was

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Speaker 4: in Beijing, like the censorship was very obvious, like certain

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Speaker 4: sites were just outright blocked. On TV, you'd be watching

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Speaker 4: CNN and suddenly it would go black during a news

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Speaker 4: story or you get newspapers delivered to you that had

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Speaker 4: literally physical like sentences crossed out with a black marker.

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Speaker 4: But what isn't isn't allowed.

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Speaker 5: I will start off by saying that if I could

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Speaker 5: answer that question really accurately, I would be a very

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Speaker 5: rich woman right now. I think the reason being, like,

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Speaker 5: the censorship ecosystem thrives off of vagueness, right the fact

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Speaker 5: that it's vague, the fact that there are no red

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Speaker 5: lines is what allows it to function so effectively. I

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Speaker 5: will say that it's changed quite dramatically over the last

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Speaker 5: few decades, especially since you were last Thera Tracy. So

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Speaker 5: you know, back in the day, I would say the

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Speaker 5: lines were much clearer. A lot of people would say

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Speaker 5: things like no Tianan Men, no Tibet, no Taiwan. They

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Speaker 5: would call them the three t's. So censorship back then

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Speaker 5: was very much allowed about a dissent against the government,

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Speaker 5: criticism of the government, but most importantly, anything that would

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Speaker 5: provoke collective action. So if there was you know, news

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Speaker 5: of a protest or news of people gathering, or any

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Speaker 5: type of unease that might boil into something bigger and

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Speaker 5: bring people together into a physical town square, that got censored.

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Speaker 5: But over the years, I would say, particularly in the

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Speaker 5: mid twenty tens, that's come to encompass also anything that

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Speaker 5: veers from the party's ideological agenda. So this is where

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Speaker 5: you have statements coming out saying we don't want unhealthy

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Speaker 5: marital values appearing on the internet, like we don't want

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Speaker 5: I think recently in twenty twenty one, sissy boys caught

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Speaker 5: added two things that got needed to be taken down

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Speaker 5: the Internet.

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Speaker 4: No cissies allowed. I'm imagining like a hand drawn sign

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Speaker 4: on a tree house or something.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know, like everything that comes, you know,

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Speaker 5: everything that's part of its ideological agenda is now scrubbed off.

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Speaker 5: And another thing that to add on there is like

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Speaker 5: the excessive flaunting of wealth. You know, that's something that's

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Speaker 5: new that used to be all over the interest back

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Speaker 5: in the day.

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Speaker 3: We need that here.

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Speaker 2: It's driving people crazy because they look on Instagram. And

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Speaker 2: I remember being, you know, during COVID, and I was

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Speaker 2: like in my house and seeing like all these people

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Speaker 2: like flying around.

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Speaker 3: I got very resentful.

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Speaker 2: What about criticisms of the government, But not from an

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Speaker 2: ideological perspective per se, because sometimes you read a story

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Speaker 2: like someone will have gotten hit by a train or

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Speaker 2: a car and maybe the police like didn't do an investigation.

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Speaker 2: You see this big uproar. Talk to us about what's

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Speaker 2: allowed and how they how the managers of the firewall

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Speaker 2: are managers of the rules, not the firewall per se.

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Speaker 2: Think about these incidents like just yeah, criticism of government handling.

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Speaker 5: Of things again, like I can't say with you know,

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Speaker 5: definitively taken down and what's now taken down. I would

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Speaker 5: veer on saying that whenever there's any criticism of any

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Speaker 5: kind of local official, local government, that's technically looked on

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Speaker 5: with great caution and taken down. But how it actually

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Speaker 5: works behind the scenes is that some higher level top

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Speaker 5: regulators say that the Chinese Cyberspace Administration the CAC will

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Speaker 5: write a directive. So maybe there's local corruption in some

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Speaker 5: county and news starts spilling out, and whoever is part

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Speaker 5: of that regulatory committee will be writing a directive that says, hey,

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Speaker 5: downplay this, let's not have this appear on way BOA.

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Speaker 5: That will then get passed on to WAYBOS sensors who

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Speaker 5: then start scrubbing that off their newsfeed, or it happens

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Speaker 5: the other way where WAYBOS sensors aren't even receiving that directive,

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Speaker 5: but kind of proactively, like a student who is really

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Speaker 5: nervous about upsetting their teacher in advance will just go

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Speaker 5: and scrub that off even before receiving that directive.

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Speaker 4: Oh interesting, so self censorship basically, yes, So how labor

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Speaker 4: intensive is the censorship process nowadays? Because you know, I imagine,

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Speaker 4: as you said, directives get made and someone has to

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Speaker 4: enact them. But on the other hand, so much of

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Speaker 4: the Internet nowadays is ruled by algos and most recently

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Speaker 4: AI you could just you know, design an algorithm that

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Speaker 4: always downplays political scandal or something like that.

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Speaker 5: I would say, hugely labor intensive.

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Speaker 4: Armies of wu maao, that's what they're called, right.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, So that specifically refers to the fifty cent army umao,

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Speaker 5: but that specifically refers to not necessarily state sponsored actors

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Speaker 5: or not necessarily state paid individuals, but people who are

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Speaker 5: kind of pumping patriotic content.

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Speaker 4: Hobbyist nationalists exactly exactly.

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Speaker 5: So you know, there's actually not too much of a

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Speaker 5: difference between the wum maao and maybe some of the

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Speaker 5: patriotic trolls and insults that you see you next today,

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Speaker 5: right to what extent is are some of the people

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Speaker 5: who are posting like pro Trump propaganda on Twitter essentially

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Speaker 5: the same as Umao. There's this dynamic called flooding, which

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Speaker 5: refers to when in cells or a particular group of

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Speaker 5: online individuals are pumping just content onto a news feed

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Speaker 5: to try to get rid of news that they don't

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Speaker 5: want people to look at. And that takes place in

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Speaker 5: China all the time. But I think that's different from

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Speaker 5: actual employees who work at places like Waybul or Doeing,

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Speaker 5: who are just spending every single day deleting stuff off

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Speaker 5: the web. And you know, when I interviewed, actually for

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Speaker 5: the book, a censor for Wayboo and he started working

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Speaker 5: there in twenty eleven. I think he was one of

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Speaker 5: one hundred and fifty employees. This is right when waybul

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Speaker 5: was founded, and he said, you know, by twenty twenty

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Speaker 5: he had left already. They're probably like ten thousand.

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Speaker 4: Wow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this is sort of what I was

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Speaker 2: struck by reading your book, which is that you know,

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Speaker 2: you talk about these people who are maybe they're bots,

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Speaker 2: maybe they're paid, maybe they're just naturally impelled to join

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Speaker 2: a mob and want to flood something. But some of

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Speaker 2: these patterns do not seem distinct to China. It's almost

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Speaker 2: like they're endemic to the Internet itself, regardless of what

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Speaker 2: the official rules are.

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Speaker 5: Absolutely right, we have no sense of whether or not

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Speaker 5: these are kind of homegrown, grassroots patriotic flames that are

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Speaker 5: just amplified. And you know when I say that, doesn't

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Speaker 5: that sound very similar to what's taking place on the

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Speaker 5: American Internet. I forget the name of that one in

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Speaker 5: Twitter influencer who's kind of been talked about. It's Trump's

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Speaker 5: right hand women. Do you know who I'm talking about?

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Speaker 3: Laura Lumer?

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Speaker 5: Yes, Laura Lumer really isn't there.

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Speaker 4: I'm gonna say you have to be more specific because

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Speaker 4: there's quite a few nowadays.

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Speaker 5: But yeah, Laura Lumer, you know when we read news

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Speaker 5: articles on her, it's is she being paid out? Is

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Speaker 5: she not being paid out? And you know, that very

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Speaker 5: much reminds me of the dynamic with a lot of

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Speaker 5: Chinese patriotic influencers, Like they very much earnestly hold the

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Speaker 5: views that they're sharing, but is there a cut being

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Speaker 5: taken by amplifying those views and supporting those views?

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Speaker 4: Since we've mentioned Wabo a couple times now and you know,

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Speaker 4: you just gave us that anecdote about the number of

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Speaker 4: sensors they had, and they have experienced phenomenal growth. One

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Speaker 4: thing I never understood about Wabo is the kind of

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Speaker 4: origins story, because my understanding is they were basically born

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Speaker 4: out of censorship. So there was unrest in a room

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Speaker 4: cheet I think it was, and so a bunch of

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Speaker 4: existing Internet platforms either got you know, repressed, or taken

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Speaker 4: down completely. And then the founder of Wabo was like,

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Speaker 4: I know, this is an opportunity for me to get

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Speaker 4: in and start my own platform. I never understood that mindset.

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Speaker 4: What was it that he thought he could do that

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Speaker 4: other platforms had failed to do.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, So Wayble actually means little blog or microblog, and

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Speaker 5: Wabo is shorthand for Sino Weboa, which is the full

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Speaker 5: company's name. But before two thousand and nine, honestly, before

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Speaker 5: twenty eleven, there were many, many way boys, or there

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Speaker 5: were dozens of companies that were all trying to be

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Speaker 5: microblogging platforms. So there was a platform called Fanfu, there

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Speaker 5: was a whole bunch. There's a platform called renren which

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Speaker 5: was not really a micro bloging platform, is kind of

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Speaker 5: like a Chinese Facebook, so to say back people people right,

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Speaker 5: exactly exactly. And the founder of Sino Weibo actually founded

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Speaker 5: what is now known as Weboa in two thousand and nine,

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Speaker 5: and he did a sally the same thing as all

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Speaker 5: these other companies. He just did a better job of censoring.

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Speaker 5: That's really what happened, as you mentioned during the protests

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Speaker 5: in Urumji in two thousand and nine. He just did

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Speaker 5: a much better job of scrubbing information off the wavebood

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Speaker 5: feed and the time and didn't get shut down where

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Speaker 5: all of these other companies got shut down.

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Speaker 3: It's interesting hearing you describe.

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Speaker 2: We did an episode actually his last March with Kaiser

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Speaker 2: Quo of the Seneca Podcast. We're talking a little bit

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Speaker 2: about how Chinese policy making works and this idea of

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Speaker 2: this sort of decentralized centralized like KPIs right. So Beijing, well,

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Speaker 2: this was in the industrial policy context. Beijing says we

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Speaker 2: want more solar production or more electric vehicle production, and

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Speaker 2: then all the provincial leaders figure out what that means

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Speaker 2: in the context of their region and then work closeta

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Speaker 2: autonomously to satisfy that. It sounds similar to some extent

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Speaker 2: with the rules around censorship, especially when you describe some

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Speaker 2: of that preemptive self censorship of everyone trying to figure

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Speaker 2: out the right level or approach that is consistent with

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Speaker 2: the broader level mandate.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: No, that's a really good point and definitely a parallel

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Speaker 5: that I would draw. You know, For example, if they

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Speaker 5: were to release industrial policy, a tech company ceo will

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Speaker 5: then like read that policy very carefully and be like, Okay,

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Speaker 5: how can we align our companies direction with the rhetoric

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Speaker 5: of this policy directive. The same goes with censorship, you know.

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Speaker 5: So one of the subjects that I profile is the

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Speaker 5: CEO or was the CEO of this skating dating app Blued.

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Speaker 5: And so if they release a censorship directive saying we

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Speaker 5: don't want cissy boys on our platform, he's going to

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Speaker 5: go and look very carefully at the platform and see

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Speaker 5: how are we going to make sure there are no

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Speaker 5: cissy boys on our app?

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Speaker 3: Right?

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Speaker 5: And so there is definitely this sense of I don't know,

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Speaker 5: if you have read Harry Potter, I never.

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Speaker 4: Did, I did?

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Speaker 6: Did you not?

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Speaker 3: I never did? I never did?

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Speaker 2: But Tracy will get listeners will get it.

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Speaker 5: This analogy really hit it home for me. But you

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Speaker 5: remember Dolores's umbrage.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, oh, she was creepy.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: You remember how she would like post these decrees and

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Speaker 5: then all of the and she would just post them

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Speaker 5: on the wall and then they would be kind of vague,

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Speaker 5: and then students would freak out and scramble, and you know,

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Speaker 5: people like Malfoy would aggressively over and interpret that. I

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Speaker 5: think that's the dynamic.

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Speaker 3: And yeah, I.

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Speaker 4: Think this is an underappreciated point sometimes, but like the

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Speaker 4: vagueness in the decrees is done on purpose, right, It's

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Speaker 4: so that like you're never really sure what is and

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Speaker 4: isn't allowed, and so you do start self censoring. And

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Speaker 4: also you know, if the government wants to go after you,

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Speaker 4: they can do it because the rule is purposely vague.

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Speaker 6: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: And it also means that, like each of these companies

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Speaker 5: have these huge keyword databases of censored words, and those

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Speaker 5: are extremely valuable. They're like proprietary assets, where you know,

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Speaker 5: they that is how they keep their company alive essentially. Right,

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Speaker 5: if you have a better keyword database than the company

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Speaker 5: down the road, you're gonna have a better chance of surviving.

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Speaker 4: So just on the keywords. This is one of the

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Speaker 4: most fascinating things about the Chinese Internet, and I think

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Speaker 4: a lot of people know about it at this point.

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Speaker 4: But you know, internet users are very creative in bypassing

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Speaker 4: the sensors, so they're always coming up with codes, some

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Speaker 4: of which sound very funny if you don't know the context,

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Speaker 4: Like isn't there one horse mud horse mud or mud

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Speaker 4: grass horse or something fighting a crab exactly the poo, Yeah,

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Speaker 4: there we go. Winnie the Pooh would be the obvious one.

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Speaker 4: This is sort of tangential. But do you think that,

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Speaker 4: I guess, do you think that kind of creativity or

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Speaker 4: like code wording, do you think that's related to the

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Speaker 4: Chinese language itself and the fact that a lot of

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Speaker 4: the words are very literal and also you have a

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Speaker 4: lot of homonyms.

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Speaker 5: Definitely, Like a huge part of it is like each

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Speaker 5: character can have multiple meanings. So for example, the most

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Speaker 5: famous one that you mentioned that emerged as early as

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Speaker 5: the early two thousands was this idea of the grass

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Speaker 5: mud horse, right, and so grass mud horse in Chinese

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Speaker 5: is tall nim mah and just depending on the tones,

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Speaker 5: you shift the tones, it becomes taalnima, which means basically

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Speaker 5: your mom, And so you know, it became this like

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Speaker 5: rally because ironic rallying cry pushing back against you know, authorities,

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Speaker 5: her being who overstepping their bounds. But it's funny and

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Speaker 5: punny at the same time.

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Speaker 2: I do think even like on Twitter, you see certain communities,

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Speaker 2: particularly more extremist ones, like you see their esoteric communications

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Speaker 2: and you see their code words. But it does seem like,

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Speaker 2: especially with the prevalence of very subtle hominems, et cetera,

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Speaker 2: the creativity for esoteric expression probably gets taken to.

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Speaker 3: The whole new level.

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Speaker 5: Definitely, definitely. Though, an interesting dynamic that I'm now seeing

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Speaker 5: is that a lot of the terms that are being

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Speaker 5: used on the Chinese Internet are actually, you know, echoing

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Speaker 5: a lot of the sentiment that of the terms that

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Speaker 5: are being used in the American Internet. One term that

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Speaker 5: I've noticed come up, it's not hugely viral in either

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Speaker 5: place yet, is this idea of the NPC? Oh yeah,

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Speaker 5: the non player character. And I didn't realize this was

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Speaker 5: like resonating on both sides.

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Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, that's interesting.

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Speaker 2: Do you know that when the big Chess party or

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Speaker 2: are you familiar with that term, or the three D

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Speaker 2: Chess party or something like that.

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Speaker 5: I'm not sure There's.

439
00:23:32,640 --> 00:23:34,879
Speaker 2: One I like that I saw that I started using,

440
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:38,240
Speaker 2: which is people who are so defensive of the leadership

441
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 2: that every everything they say, it's like, no, no, you

442
00:23:41,119 --> 00:23:43,760
Speaker 2: don't get it. They're playing five D chess, right, And

443
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:45,800
Speaker 2: so I think the term was a big chess party

444
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 2: or something like that.

445
00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:49,400
Speaker 3: I think we need to we need to start incorporating

446
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:50,320
Speaker 3: that war because.

447
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:50,680
Speaker 4: It's a good one.

448
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:50,920
Speaker 3: Yeah.

449
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:54,840
Speaker 4: But actually, on this note, how difficult is it to

450
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:57,520
Speaker 4: keep track of all the different code words or to

451
00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:01,119
Speaker 4: learn the new code words? Because you know, on the

452
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:05,080
Speaker 4: one hand, if you're saying Winnie the Pooh and instead

453
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:07,959
Speaker 4: of sheshin ping or something like that, it allows you

454
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:12,239
Speaker 4: to perhaps bypass censorship. But on the other hand, if

455
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:16,040
Speaker 4: you're talking in code constantly, I imagine it means some

456
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:19,639
Speaker 4: people like just aren't getting the message. It's not resonating

457
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:23,320
Speaker 4: with a certain sector of society. So how difficult is

458
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 4: it and what are the pros and cons of having

459
00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:28,560
Speaker 4: to keep up with all these keywords constantly?

460
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I mean it's hugely difficult. It just means that

461
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:34,200
Speaker 5: these words become more and more obscure. You know, I'm

462
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 5: someone who has made a career out of studying the

463
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 5: Chinese Internet, and I'll often read social media posts and

464
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:42,680
Speaker 5: have no idea what's going on, and their entire teams.

465
00:24:42,680 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 5: There's actually this excellent team called China Digital Times, nonprofit

466
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:50,320
Speaker 5: organization that they have a lex icon exactly exactly, and

467
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:52,680
Speaker 5: I have to consult that because sometimes I'm reading stuff

468
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:54,439
Speaker 5: and I have no idea what it's referring to.

469
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 6: Huh.

470
00:24:55,280 --> 00:24:57,159
Speaker 2: I want to get into more of this sort of

471
00:24:57,200 --> 00:25:01,719
Speaker 2: like understand especially like how American or internationally we might

472
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:04,320
Speaker 2: learn more generally about what's going on the Chinese Internet.

473
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:06,120
Speaker 3: But before we get to that, I.

474
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 2: Want to ask, there is this trope or this thing

475
00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:11,199
Speaker 2: that gets repeated a lot, and you heard it a

476
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 2: lot in the TikTok debates, and it's smacks of a

477
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 2: certain racism or exoticism or orientalism, et cetera, where people say, oh,

478
00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 2: on American TikTok, they're all like, it's all a bunch

479
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:26,960
Speaker 2: of garbage and rage, bait and slop. But on the

480
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:30,679
Speaker 2: equivalent in China, it's they're learning mathematics and learning how

481
00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 2: to play violin and all these sort of stereotypical things.

482
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:36,040
Speaker 2: Can you talk to us just a little bit about

483
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 2: like how similar dissimilar. Do these platforms feel from a

484
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 2: sort of day to day content standpoint setting aside sensitivity

485
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 2: is about politics.

486
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:48,679
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I'm like kind of torn about that

487
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 5: statement because on one hand, it kind of like glorifies.

488
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:54,879
Speaker 5: I mean, depending on who you're like at who's saying

489
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:58,119
Speaker 5: those statements, right, you're either glorifying and kind of like

490
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 5: projecting a lot to the Chinese. And it really reveals

491
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 5: more about I would say, like American conservative anxiety about

492
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 5: what's appearing on their own Internet and projections, because the

493
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 5: Chinese Internet is full of like crazy slop too, at least, is.

494
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 3: What I'm like get.

495
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:16,119
Speaker 2: My assumption is that the gap is like massively overstated.

496
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:19,359
Speaker 2: But I've never you know, exactly seen whatever the Chinese

497
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:22,160
Speaker 2: version the original tiktoge, so I just have no sense

498
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 2: like how real these stereotypes.

499
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 5: Are whatever exactly Like when a young student, you know,

500
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:29,240
Speaker 5: in China is just like scrolling through Doeing, They're not

501
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:33,720
Speaker 5: just getting wonderful math content. It's going to like help

502
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:36,879
Speaker 5: them excel at school. But what I will say is

503
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:40,679
Speaker 5: that definitely within the Chinese censorship context, there is this

504
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 5: emphasis on what the party likes to call positive energy

505
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 5: so it is definitely much more sanitized than American social

506
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 5: media platforms, Like you are not going to see quote

507
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:56,160
Speaker 5: unquote unhealthy marital values or like that is taken down right.

508
00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 5: And so while on one hand, I don't want to

509
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:01,919
Speaker 5: say like they're completely different, they definitely are different in

510
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:04,200
Speaker 5: terms of, you know, what appears there and what does.

511
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 4: It Since you mentioned students, have we seen any efforts

512
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 4: by the party to I guess crack down on internet

513
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 4: use in general? And I'm thinking back to, you know,

514
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:18,439
Speaker 4: the video game crackdown, where there was, you know, a

515
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:21,520
Speaker 4: sense or a directive that kids were spending too much

516
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 4: time playing video games and they should be learning important

517
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 4: and useful things. Do you see a similar attitude towards

518
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 4: the internet just out of curiosity?

519
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:32,760
Speaker 5: Not as much, but I would say the video game

520
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:35,680
Speaker 5: piece is the one that you know comes to mind

521
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 5: when you bring it up. I think the issue being

522
00:27:38,600 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 5: the Internet is just such a vital part of daily

523
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 5: operation and just getting around. Like you can't really tell

524
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 5: a young person to get off we chat if that's

525
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 5: both how he communicates with his mom and his teacher,

526
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 5: you know, and to buy basic goods. But you can say, well,

527
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 5: let's get rid of video games for X amount of

528
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 5: hours every weekday. Because that's clearly.

529
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 2: That if I spoke Chinese, could I open up a

530
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 2: Weba account from here? Would it be easy to just

531
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 2: start joining us posting with them?

532
00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, definitely talk to.

533
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:30,879
Speaker 3: Us about I should do that.

534
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:32,919
Speaker 2: That's a good reason to learn Chinese, which is one

535
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 2: of my twenty twenty six goals is to start taking lessons.

536
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:37,679
Speaker 3: So thank you, thank you.

537
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 2: Talk to us about that five minute period in history

538
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 2: in which TikTok was banned in the United States and

539
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 2: suddenly there was a flood of American users to that

540
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:50,840
Speaker 2: other red note or something like that.

541
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:51,720
Speaker 3: I forgot what was called.

542
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 2: Well, talk to us about that experience and whether anything

543
00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 2: interesting emerged from that. There was ten days where that.

544
00:28:58,920 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 3: Happened or whatever.

545
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was an incredible moment. I remember it very clearly.

546
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:07,480
Speaker 5: But essentially there was news impending news that TikTok would

547
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 5: get banned in the US and all these teto.

548
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, but in.

549
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 5: Lead up to that, TikTok users were freaking out, and they,

550
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:19,160
Speaker 5: essentially I think millions of American TikTok users started to

551
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 5: flood red Note or as it's known in China's Yahongshu,

552
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 5: which is you know, people call it China's Instagram, but

553
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 5: that's not quite the right equivalent. It's almost this Instagram

554
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 5: meets Pinterest meets Yelp type social media platform mostly used

555
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 5: by young urban women. It has a slightly more liberal

556
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 5: bent to like catch up on lifestyle and news. Now

557
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 5: it's all kinds of news. But I was both on

558
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:50,479
Speaker 5: one hand, struck by the irony of the situation. You know,

559
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 5: that the American Internet had somehow become so closed and

560
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 5: siloed and controlled that the way to escape it was

561
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 5: to then jump to argue because it's sort of like it.

562
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:06,280
Speaker 2: Was sort of like a reverse Berlin Wall moment in

563
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:09,560
Speaker 2: which the West, the West Germans were the ones flooding

564
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 2: into the other side after this, uh, I don't know,

565
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 2: something like that.

566
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 3: It was very yeah, exactly exactly right.

567
00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 2: It's like these were the ones that had the restriction

568
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 2: placed on US America, and so then there suddenly like

569
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:22,760
Speaker 2: we spill out, find a new hole in the wall

570
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:24,560
Speaker 2: to spill over onto the other side.

571
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 5: Exactly, which is why they were you know, like I

572
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 5: think American users were looking for their Chinese spies kind

573
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 5: of ironically and Chinese users were teaching them how to

574
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 5: get around red note sensors. But I think like key

575
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 5: to that was just like I felt a lot of

576
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 5: delight from that moment because it was the first time

577
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 5: there was this like really sincere and earnest exchange between

578
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 5: users on both sides of the Internet, and I hadn't

579
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:52,720
Speaker 5: felt that and seen that in years, if not decades.

580
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 4: So one of the debates that's constantly ongoing when it

581
00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 4: comes to TikTok is what the algorithm is doing and

582
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 4: what can it's actually surfacing. What are the like parallels

583
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 4: with I guess censorship in China or where do you

584
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 4: see key differences in terms of what the algo can

585
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 4: do to influence the general population.

586
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 5: So you mean, like between the algorithm in China and

587
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 5: the algorithm in the US, I would say that, you know,

588
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 5: the algorithms, it's always really hard to say to what

589
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 5: extent the algorithm is playing a role in censorship censorship

590
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 5: of the content, right, And I think that's one of

591
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 5: the big issues or that the big criticisms it's playing

592
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:38,680
Speaker 5: out right now with this TikTok sale. Even though vast

593
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 5: majority of the ownership is American, the algorithm is still

594
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 5: owned by Byte Dance. So to what extent does bite

595
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 5: Dance still have influence over what American users are seeing.

596
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:50,479
Speaker 5: That's up to question. I think the difference is in

597
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 5: China there's just a lot more tools externally to kind

598
00:31:56,320 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 5: of control at what happens after that. It doesn't matter

599
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 5: how the algorithm is dictating what appears on the feeds.

600
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 5: You know, there's still content moderators who can come in

601
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:09,840
Speaker 5: and deal with the content that is posted online after

602
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 5: you know it's already posted.

603
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:15,480
Speaker 4: Joe, I feel like I need to make a public

604
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 4: service announcement, actually a public service announcement recognizing someone for

605
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 4: their public service, which is Sam Row, who does the

606
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:27,680
Speaker 4: dirty work of trawling through TikTok on a daily basis

607
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 4: and then cross posting the good videos onto Instagram for

608
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 4: everyone who doesn't actually have TikTok like.

609
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 3: Me, people should follow him.

610
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 4: He'd genuinely a public service.

611
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 2: Genuinely, I want to go back to this sort of

612
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:42,000
Speaker 2: kind of where we started at the beginning. But I

613
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 2: think it's a question of some pretty significant stakes, you know.

614
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 2: So you talk about the rise of the sort of

615
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 2: like very nationalistic impulse that you see on the Chinese

616
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 2: Internet these days. She again very similar to here, And

617
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 2: I would say, and many people would agree that if

618
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:01,080
Speaker 2: you look at the US government right now, you're like

619
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 2: the pathologies, the dysfunctions, et cetera. It's like almost downstream,

620
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 2: like the Internet has shaped the US government in many respects.

621
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 2: Max Reid, who we've had on the podcast, who has

622
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 2: a really good newsletter, talked about how it's like the

623
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 2: comment section is one and all of the people who

624
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 2: are in power in the US government are the people

625
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 2: who like ten years ago were angry about having been

626
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:25,800
Speaker 2: banned from the comment section, and now they have the

627
00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 2: last laugh on everyone else because now they hold the

628
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:32,240
Speaker 2: levers of power. Talk to us about the emergence of

629
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 2: the sort of strong nationalistic undercurrent on the Chinese Internet.

630
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:39,720
Speaker 2: When did that like start to emerge and how does

631
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 2: that sort of like reinforce the political direction of travel

632
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:46,280
Speaker 2: within Chinese politics.

633
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:49,120
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would say, similar to what has happened in

634
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:53,000
Speaker 5: the US, that patriotic undertone has always been there as

635
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 5: early as like the pre Internet period of like the

636
00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 5: eighties and nineties of people who you know, perhaps we're

637
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 5: speaking of a patriotic China in the more a liberal sense.

638
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 5: They wanted strong men rule. They didn't want you know,

639
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 5: a lot of the leftists in China, as we think

640
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 5: about them in China and not in the US, wanted

641
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 5: you know, China not to be kind of swept up

642
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 5: by liberal influence. It needed a strong state to be

643
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 5: in charge of the economy. But I would say, similar

644
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 5: to the US, that nationalist voice was very fringe. It

645
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 5: was niche. It was kind of seen as radical. So

646
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 5: you know, as early as two thousand and eight, for example,

647
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:34,760
Speaker 5: there where as you mentioned, like the fifty cent army,

648
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,160
Speaker 5: but also what was known is like angry youth or finching.

649
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:42,120
Speaker 5: So two thousand and eight was like a hugely pivotal

650
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:45,479
Speaker 5: moment for China in that the country was stepping onto

651
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:49,800
Speaker 5: the world on the global stage as this international presence,

652
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 5: and it wanted to present itself as super liberal. But

653
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 5: at the time there were these like very angry youth

654
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 5: who were online and being like, look at how China

655
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 5: is being presented by CNN. We're being kind of smeared

656
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:07,360
Speaker 5: by westerners. But they were small. I would say today

657
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:11,400
Speaker 5: the Chinese internet is largely fencing. They're no longer called that.

658
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:14,399
Speaker 5: But you know, I would say in twenty sixteen, there's

659
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:18,400
Speaker 5: an emergence of what we now call Little Pinks or

660
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:22,800
Speaker 5: self and Home, and it's like you merged the fencing

661
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:26,000
Speaker 5: or you merged the patriot with the stan or the

662
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:28,719
Speaker 5: online found where you know, like.

663
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 4: What they softer nationalism exactly or.

664
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:36,920
Speaker 5: Not even softer, but they use the tactics of online fandom,

665
00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:40,040
Speaker 5: so you know, like they use the same tactics of

666
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:43,759
Speaker 5: like a group of Justin Bieber fans would do to

667
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 5: take down Justin Bieber's nemesis, where except they're doing that

668
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:51,399
Speaker 5: with maybe like Taigwan, who's the who was the leader

669
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 5: of Taiwan. And so I would say there's this like

670
00:35:54,760 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 5: fusion of online internet celebrity culture with online patriotism, and

671
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:03,759
Speaker 5: you know it's not so much different from like the

672
00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:04,520
Speaker 5: Reddit insult.

673
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 2: Yes, it feels very similar. I just want to just

674
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:09,960
Speaker 2: to go down this road a little bit further. Last

675
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 2: year I read Kevin Rudd's book about Shijinping, and one

676
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:15,279
Speaker 2: of the points that he makes, you know a lot

677
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 2: of people think of, Okay, she gets into power and

678
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 2: then sort of takes this nationalist turn, and he makes

679
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 2: the point that actually the sort of more nationalist turn

680
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 2: in Chinese politics, some of the anti liberal started under

681
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:31,960
Speaker 2: the late Hu Jintao years, which makes me again wonder

682
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:36,759
Speaker 2: whether there was this brewing force, partly cultivated by the

683
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:39,960
Speaker 2: Internet that was starting. You know that rather than okay,

684
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:42,880
Speaker 2: Shijhinping comes in and presses the button and turns the

685
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 2: Internet in a more nationalist direction, that this was already

686
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:50,720
Speaker 2: an emerging thing, and helps explain Hijinping's durability and ability

687
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:53,319
Speaker 2: to consolidate power and so forth. That there's sort of

688
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 2: that it's a bottom up phenomenon is as much as

689
00:36:56,239 --> 00:36:57,239
Speaker 2: it is a top down thing.

690
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:00,120
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And this is why I keep coming back to

691
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:02,800
Speaker 5: two thousand and eight, is this huge turning point. And Kaiser,

692
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:05,319
Speaker 5: who's one of your guests, has made this point a

693
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:08,919
Speaker 5: few times, which is, you know, in two thousand and eight,

694
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 5: I think the big thing that happened at the time

695
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:15,800
Speaker 5: was a the Beijing Olympics and be the financial crisis.

696
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 5: So at this moment when you know, Chinese people were

697
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:22,359
Speaker 5: standing up and for the first time, a lot of

698
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:24,880
Speaker 5: like the Great Firewalls was getting taken down, so a

699
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 5: lot of Chinese Internet users in Beijing could see the

700
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 5: news for the first time. They were seeing two things

701
00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 5: they were seeing CNN, you know, posting news about the

702
00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 5: Tibet protests and not covering the Olympics, and they're also

703
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:41,320
Speaker 5: seeing eventually news of the financial crisis. So there was

704
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 5: this sense of like, well, you know, we expected to

705
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 5: engage with the outside world, and instead the West is

706
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 5: criticizing China and can't get its own ship in order.

707
00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:56,360
Speaker 5: And so there is a sense both among kind of

708
00:37:56,440 --> 00:37:59,919
Speaker 5: ordinary people of this growing patriotism but also the leader,

709
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:04,920
Speaker 5: which the leadership itself, because they were thinking, well, maybe

710
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 5: liberalization is not the way to go right, maybe like

711
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 5: liberalization leads to unruly financial markets, and we need to

712
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 5: steer this ship in a different direction. And so we

713
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:18,839
Speaker 5: see both kind of a nationalistic turn but also in

714
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 5: a liberal turn, and that very much precedes Sejenpingg's rise

715
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 5: to power.

716
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 4: I think people forget what a huge moment the two

717
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:30,280
Speaker 4: thousand and eight Olympics actually were, like actually physically changed

718
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:34,200
Speaker 4: Beijing and then also changed a lot of Chinese society.

719
00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:36,920
Speaker 4: But I'm still I'm still annoyed that they got rid

720
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:40,760
Speaker 4: of all the fake DVD stores because those were fun. Anyway,

721
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:45,520
Speaker 4: we have to get in an ai question. So with

722
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:48,640
Speaker 4: the advent of AI. A lot of the technology which

723
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:52,239
Speaker 4: is coming out of China is very impressive. Does censorship

724
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 4: become easier?

725
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:58,040
Speaker 5: I would say yes. I mean AI has always been

726
00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:02,759
Speaker 5: It has been long used in Chinese censorship capacity, not

727
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 5: just with the advent of generative AI. So, you know,

728
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 5: the sensor that I interviewed, he said that, you know,

729
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 5: before he even goes in and looks at what's being

730
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 5: taken down, a you know, automated process first flags all

731
00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:19,759
Speaker 5: of the sensitive words. I imagine that just makes that

732
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:21,720
Speaker 5: process significantly easier.

733
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:25,240
Speaker 2: Is there any way to gauge sort of public opinion

734
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 2: about the Internet or like, because I think there are

735
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:30,000
Speaker 2: a lot of people in the US again who would say, like, yes,

736
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:32,959
Speaker 2: this would be great. I would love to make rage

737
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 2: bait illegal. I would love it if people weren't flaunting

738
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:39,200
Speaker 2: their wealth. I would love it if there were not

739
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 2: pornography easily available on the Internet, et cetera. I think

740
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:46,000
Speaker 2: a lot of people hear this and it's like, yeah,

741
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:51,360
Speaker 2: sounds pretty good. Is there discontent with the state of moderation?

742
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 2: Is there discontent with some of the restrictions? Is there

743
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:57,240
Speaker 2: no like, is there way to gauge some of these questions?

744
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:00,240
Speaker 5: They're certainly discontent, but I think it's just very hard

745
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:03,040
Speaker 5: to gauge public opinion in China in general. I would say,

746
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:07,120
Speaker 5: broadly speaking, there is like embrace of technological change and

747
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:11,279
Speaker 5: embrace of technological progress that's more elevated in China than

748
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:13,480
Speaker 5: in the US. But you know, there are people who

749
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 5: are unhappy with the censorship regime and people who like

750
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 5: having those controls. I will say, at the heart of

751
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 5: that kind of debate or that envy is just like,

752
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 5: what are the governance mechanisms that we can put in

753
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 5: place at this moment with AI? Right, I think everyone's

754
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 5: freaking out about this uncontrollable new technology. In China at

755
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:38,200
Speaker 5: the very least seems to have a governance mechanism in place. So,

756
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 5: for example, there is a algorithm registry where essentially every

757
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:48,280
Speaker 5: single company that has an AI tool needs to submit

758
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:52,319
Speaker 5: their algorithm to authorities and that is then listed in

759
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:56,000
Speaker 5: a public registry. And no equivalent of that exists in

760
00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:58,600
Speaker 5: the US. And that's actually I think, you know, that's

761
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 5: actually a pretty interesting form of governance and maybe something

762
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 5: that other countries can learn from.

763
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:06,919
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, people have criticized algoes here for being

764
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 4: essentially black boxes just coming. I guess, full circle back

765
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:16,400
Speaker 4: to our intro. The surprising thing here is, you know,

766
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 4: the US and the Chinese Internet have followed a very

767
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 4: similar evolution, despite very different governance regimes. So I think

768
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:29,400
Speaker 4: to some extent, you could imagine, all right, Chinese Internet

769
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:34,319
Speaker 4: heavily censored. Obviously there's going to be a surge of nationalism, right,

770
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:38,360
Speaker 4: whereas in the US. I guess maybe it's more surprising.

771
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 4: But what's your overarching thesis for why we sort of

772
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:47,799
Speaker 4: ended up in the same place despite having very different systems.

773
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:52,240
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that's a good question. I would say, first,

774
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 5: we were pretty naive about the fact that technology even

775
00:41:57,719 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 5: moves in the direction of freedom, Right, that's kind of

776
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:03,480
Speaker 5: like based on the assumption that's just the direction that

777
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 5: we're going to go in. I would say probably my

778
00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:11,960
Speaker 5: overarching thesis is that we've allowed too much of technology

779
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:15,840
Speaker 5: to be centralized within the hands of a few people.

780
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 5: And it doesn't matter, you know, the US and American systems.

781
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 5: People often talk about the differences, but actually they're remarkably similar.

782
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 5: It doesn't matter if it is government that has centralized,

783
00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:29,520
Speaker 5: it's you know, the power of technology in its hands

784
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 5: or as you mentioned like a handful of tech oligarchs

785
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:35,279
Speaker 5: right at the end of the day. How different is

786
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:39,560
Speaker 5: Elon Musk's control over x or Twitter different from you know,

787
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:43,160
Speaker 5: the Chinese government's control of Weiboa. The whims of one

788
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:48,280
Speaker 5: man essentially dictates the way a platform plays out. And

789
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:50,920
Speaker 5: I think that's the key problem, is that we've taken

790
00:42:50,960 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 5: this like decentralized technology and made it highly centralized and

791
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:58,760
Speaker 5: it doesn't matter under what political system that actually takes place.

792
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 2: One thing that I think anyone who again, the word

793
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:05,200
Speaker 2: that always pops into my head, is sort of the

794
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:08,919
Speaker 2: tribalizing effect of the Internet. People start to they hate

795
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 2: each other, they hate start to hate people who aren't

796
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:16,839
Speaker 2: exactly like them. Are there cleavages within Chinese society that

797
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:21,960
Speaker 2: are deepening or widening because of everyone in the mix together.

798
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:25,799
Speaker 2: Are there sort of demographic aspects or whatever in which

799
00:43:26,320 --> 00:43:29,440
Speaker 2: you could see these sort of team tensions build and

800
00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:32,160
Speaker 2: sort of domestic stability, because I think you see that

801
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:34,040
Speaker 2: all the time on the American Internet.

802
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:39,400
Speaker 5: I think the biggest cleavage that I've observed is just

803
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 5: along the lines of wealth and inequality. And that's like

804
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:46,960
Speaker 5: another parallel that I'm seeing today. And yeah, the biggest

805
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:50,240
Speaker 5: parallel that I see is between those who are building

806
00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:52,680
Speaker 5: the new technologies and those who are using and being

807
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 5: used by it. So, you know, funnily enough, when I

808
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:58,480
Speaker 5: visit China, I have a very similar experience of when

809
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 5: I visit Silicon Valley, where everyone who is talking about

810
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 5: or building or investing in these new AI tools are

811
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 5: really hyped or you know, like there there's like an

812
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 5: occasional doomer in the mix, but they're very excited about it.

813
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 3: They're to build it exactly.

814
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 5: Like, there's this sense of agency, there's a sense of competition,

815
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:20,320
Speaker 5: like we are the builders and makers of the future,

816
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:24,360
Speaker 5: whereas when you talk to just anyone who is just

817
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:26,880
Speaker 5: using the technology is not aware of how it's built

818
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:30,360
Speaker 5: or involved in that process. There's this kind of deep

819
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 5: sense of pessimism or a lack of agency, you know,

820
00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 5: which brings me back to this like NPC meme, there's

821
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:38,919
Speaker 5: a sense of well, I don't actually have a role

822
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 5: in this process, like I'm a non player character and

823
00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 5: you know, I have no say, And so that actually

824
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:49,360
Speaker 5: is the biggest cleavage that I'm seeing, both in China

825
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:50,240
Speaker 5: and in the US.

826
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:55,279
Speaker 2: All Right, Elinglu, author of The Wall dancers graduations. Phenomenal book,

827
00:44:55,320 --> 00:44:57,239
Speaker 2: and I really appreciate you coming on outlines.

828
00:44:57,320 --> 00:45:11,440
Speaker 6: Thanks so much for having me, Tracy.

829
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:14,760
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed that conversation a lot, and it really

830
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:16,360
Speaker 2: was not until.

831
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:17,840
Speaker 4: I know you like talking about the Internet.

832
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:19,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love talking.

833
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 2: About the I love the Internet, even though it is

834
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 2: to your words, and I would agree in many respects Sussesspool.

835
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:26,320
Speaker 3: But thinking about how.

836
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:29,919
Speaker 2: Similar the American and Chinese internets are despite ostensibly being

837
00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 2: very different in this in the legal sense, is like

838
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:36,960
Speaker 2: probably one of the more fascinating threads I've thought about

839
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 2: in a while.

840
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:40,480
Speaker 4: I think, Yeah, I was thinking during that conversation, I

841
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:43,360
Speaker 4: was going to ask what's scarier an army of Little

842
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:46,760
Speaker 4: pinks coming after you or an army of K pop fans.

843
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:49,480
Speaker 4: And it's sort of a facetious question, but on the

844
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 4: other hand, it highlights this point, right, which is the

845
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:56,040
Speaker 4: Internet and the way people behave on the Internet has

846
00:45:56,120 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 4: been remarkably similar across geographies. It doesn't really matter like

847
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:02,359
Speaker 4: what group you're in.

848
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:07,320
Speaker 2: No, I think that's one hundred percent correct. And you know, again,

849
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 2: the K pop stands as their own tribe, but.

850
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 3: Probably one of the less harmful ones, right, like probably.

851
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 4: Like they are vicious when they want to be.

852
00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:18,440
Speaker 2: Joe, I never write I actually I think I tweeted

853
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:19,759
Speaker 2: about K pop once and I.

854
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 4: Was like, I'm gonna mute never again.

855
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 3: I'm muting this thread right away.

856
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:24,840
Speaker 2: But this is what we do, right, I mean, it

857
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 2: feels like we as people naturally are drawn to this

858
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:32,799
Speaker 2: sort of I would say mob behavior, right when presented

859
00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:35,560
Speaker 2: with these new technologies in which we can connect with

860
00:46:35,719 --> 00:46:38,360
Speaker 2: like minded people, whether they share or tastes for music,

861
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:42,359
Speaker 2: or whether they share sort of national impulses or whatever else,

862
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:46,920
Speaker 2: this is what most people, a lot of people fall into, maybe,

863
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,839
Speaker 2: And so I think it's like really interesting that for all, yeah,

864
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:52,200
Speaker 2: for all of this like talk of different rules and

865
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:56,120
Speaker 2: so forth, that the patterns just sort of propagate everywhere.

866
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:59,239
Speaker 4: The other thing that struck me, and this has come

867
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 4: up before in other episodes, but it's the sort of

868
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:07,720
Speaker 4: you know, people think about China as this big centralized entity,

869
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:10,520
Speaker 4: and it is to some extent, but the way that

870
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:16,879
Speaker 4: centralized entity actually executes policy ends up being very decentralized. Yeah, right,

871
00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:20,200
Speaker 4: And I think that's kind of underappreciated how much scope

872
00:47:20,920 --> 00:47:27,399
Speaker 4: individual sensors or individual local governments have to enact specific

873
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 4: directives and how they go about doing it.

874
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 2: It's interesting that webo's competitive edge was essentially, yeah, being

875
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:37,160
Speaker 2: the best at censorship, right, and that was the one

876
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:41,520
Speaker 2: that survived and sort of anticipating and so forth. And

877
00:47:41,560 --> 00:47:44,880
Speaker 2: so let's say I liked the decentralized internet. That was

878
00:47:44,960 --> 00:47:47,520
Speaker 2: fun going to different people's websites and seeing what they're

879
00:47:47,520 --> 00:47:50,360
Speaker 2: all about. And you could theoretically still do it, but

880
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:53,719
Speaker 2: it takes effort in a way that doesn't feel worth

881
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:56,920
Speaker 2: it when you could just have an algorithm deliver straight

882
00:47:57,040 --> 00:48:01,040
Speaker 2: what your sort of ID peels to you, like directly

883
00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:01,600
Speaker 2: in the moment.

884
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 4: It was a great time. Late nineteen nineties were the

885
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:05,480
Speaker 4: peak of humanity.

886
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:07,960
Speaker 3: On ironically unronically.

887
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:09,200
Speaker 4: That are you really going to learn Chinese?

888
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 2: So yeah, one of my New Year's resolutions is to

889
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:14,239
Speaker 2: take Mandarin classes this year, and I will do that.

890
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:18,360
Speaker 4: I really liked learning Mandarin back way back in the

891
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:20,560
Speaker 4: day when I did it, because there's very little grammar,

892
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:22,880
Speaker 4: and I hate grammar because it's nice. I had to

893
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:26,720
Speaker 4: learn German and German grammar is the worst. And also

894
00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:29,640
Speaker 4: as you learn words, one thing I really like about

895
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:33,280
Speaker 4: it is it's very literal, so a lot of words

896
00:48:33,840 --> 00:48:38,080
Speaker 4: have meanings that sort of reflect the thing being talked about. So,

897
00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:43,040
Speaker 4: for instance, if you're talking about America, so America is maguo,

898
00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:47,520
Speaker 4: which means beautiful country. So that's sort of like interesting

899
00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:53,280
Speaker 4: meaning is imbibed into these individual words. Or Austria because

900
00:48:53,320 --> 00:48:58,200
Speaker 4: that's my other half, is Audili, which means Eastern Empire,

901
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:02,240
Speaker 4: which you know, again descriptive of what you're talking about.

902
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 3: Well it wasn't the German is right, Yeah, yeah, it means.

903
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:08,160
Speaker 4: It's a literal translation.

904
00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:09,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's interesting.

905
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 2: You know, both of us are pretty big followings on

906
00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:15,840
Speaker 2: social media, particularly Twitter. Wouldn't it be fun as this

907
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:19,400
Speaker 2: personal challenge? So like, let's start from zero again on

908
00:49:19,560 --> 00:49:21,600
Speaker 2: Waibo and see if we could do it all over again.

909
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:23,960
Speaker 2: It's like we weren't just lucky, we were really good.

910
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:26,360
Speaker 2: Let's start from zero and make names for ourselves on

911
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:27,200
Speaker 2: the Chinese Internet.

912
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:30,200
Speaker 4: I think your definition of fun maybe differs from mine.

913
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:31,960
Speaker 4: Show it's like I need to.

914
00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 2: Prove to myself that it wasn't just luck, and I

915
00:49:34,640 --> 00:49:36,880
Speaker 2: need so I need to start from zero and try again.

916
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:40,759
Speaker 4: Oh man, do it in Mandarin, do a real challenge, do.

917
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:41,520
Speaker 3: It on hard mode?

918
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:41,960
Speaker 1: Yeah?

919
00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, where I have to do it in a different language.

920
00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 4: All right, shall we leave it there?

921
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 3: Let's leave it there.

922
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:48,400
Speaker 4: This has been another episode of the au Thoughts podcast.

923
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:51,280
Speaker 4: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.

924
00:49:51,520 --> 00:49:54,440
Speaker 2: And I'm Jill Wisanthal. You can follow me at The Stalwart.

925
00:49:54,719 --> 00:49:57,879
Speaker 2: Follow ye Ling Lu. She's at yee Linglu ninety five,

926
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:00,800
Speaker 2: and definitely check out her new book, The Wall Dancer,

927
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:04,440
Speaker 2: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet. Follow

928
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:08,080
Speaker 2: our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen armand Dashel Bennett at

929
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:11,960
Speaker 2: dashbot and Kelbrooks at Kelbrooks. And for more odd Laws content,

930
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:14,319
Speaker 2: go to Bloomberg dot com, slash odd Lots were at

931
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:16,839
Speaker 2: Daily Newsletter and all of our episodes, and you can

932
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:19,160
Speaker 2: chat about all these topics twenty four to seven in

933
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 2: our discord Discord dot gg slash odlines.

934
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:25,200
Speaker 4: And if you enjoy Oddlots, if you like it when

935
00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:27,319
Speaker 4: we talk about the Internet, then please leave us a

936
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:30,880
Speaker 4: positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if

937
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:33,600
Speaker 4: you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all

938
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:36,560
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939
00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:39,239
Speaker 4: do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts and

940
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:41,840
Speaker 4: follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening

941
00:51:07,040 --> 00:51:07,120
Speaker 6: In