WEBVTT - The Surprising Similarity Between the US and Chinese Internets 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:14.000 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:22.079 Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.600 I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. Tracy remember how 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:26.439 like in the late. 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:29.120 Nineties, like the Internet was starting to become a thing, 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:33.480 and people thought it would bring like liberalism and democracy utopia. 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:36.320 I totally bought into that, Like I you know, people 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:38.240 look back at that and like, oh, they were naive, 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:40.320 Like I don't blame them, Like, I think I bought 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:40.879 into that too. 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.000 I mean, there was something very wholesome about the sort 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.920 of mid nineties internet culture where you could go to 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:50.240 everyone's like little individual blog and people were mostly talking 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:52.600 about their hobbies and things like that, or at least 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:54.800 that was my experience of it, probably colored by the 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:56.600 fact that I was in middle school at the time, 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:58.600 but it seemed very innocent. 0:00:58.320 --> 0:00:59.200 It was very cool. 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:03.040 It was very decentralized, right, So now we associate the 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:07.759 Internet with a handful of tech oligarchs that control various kingdoms. 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:09.840 Maybe you could even say within the Internet, whether it's 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.240 the medic Kingdom or the Amazon Kingdom or whatever. But 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:15.800 it was very decentralized. Everyone with their own little sites 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.520 cobbled together and so forth, and I totally bought that idea. 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:20.920 It's just like, Oh, we're all going to talk to 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:22.119 each other, we're going to work. 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:25.920 Things out, and there's no way that authoritarian governments could 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.840 ever control this, and it will finally realize the true 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:31.919 promise of democracy and all that stuff. 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:33.040 I totally bought into it. 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.679 Fast forward to twenty twenty six. How would you describe 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:37.440 the Internet now? 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.360 I mean, the word that always comes to my mind, 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:42.440 and there are many words, is just this sort of 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:47.480 like sheer like sort of tribalism and conflictualism on every level, 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:53.800 right nationalism, racism, bigotry, anti semitism, sexism, et cetera. It's 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:56.440 just like riven with that, it's riven with conflict and 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.680 so forth. It's heavily centralized. All of the sort of 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:02.880 utilh and promise I'm like, didn't really pan out that way. 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.880 I would say Cesspool one too. You have to try 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:11.399 really really hard nowadays to find good and useful corners 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:14.280 of the Internet. I'm not saying that they're not out there, 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.120 but it is interesting how far we've deviated from that 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:21.440 initial utopian premise of the Internet. The other thing that's happening. 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:26.240 We're recording this on let's see January twenty seventh. What's 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.480 interesting is that we're starting to have even more discussion 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:32.720 about the power of the platform. So over the weekend 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:36.080 there have been some allegations that TikTok, for instance, is 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:41.079 censoring Minneapolis video or video of the Minneapolis shooting. And 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:46.240 that's just after the new ownership took control of the platform, right, 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:48.840 so they spun off the US business, and now it 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.120 has all these new owners and people are starting to 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:53.839 talk about, well, maybe they're censoring or even if they're 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:58.720 not directly censoring some stuff, maybe the algorithm is influencing 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:00.000 what people see totally. 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.079 And then there's one other dimension before we getting into 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.280 the conversation that I think is very important here, which 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:09.760 is that the Internet is splintering geographically. Right, So we've 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.080 known for a long time. Of course, people talk about 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.520 the firewall in China and the Chinese Internet, but it's 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.519 not just China, right. We see the UK establishing its 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:22.200 own rules, We see Australia establishing its own rules. We 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:24.840 saw the thing a couple of years ago with Brazil 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.880 temporarily banning Twitter, et cetera. And so there's all these 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:32.800 sort of intermingling of digital platforms and national sovereignty, and 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.280 I really do believe to some extent that a lot 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:38.240 of the leaders around the world are looking at China 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:42.880 and a seemingly more controlled Internet like with jealousy, right, 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.880 and oh, we would love to have this level of 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:50.160 control over our sort of town square, et cetera. And 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:52.200 you know, some countries of the First Amendment, so that 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.320 makes it very tough, et cetera. But it really feels 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.680 like there's so many aspects of the Internet that are 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:00.960 sort of not panning out, and people like, we want 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:02.840 to constrict what people could see, we want to tighten 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:06.400 the algorithms, we want to curb some kind of discourse, 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:06.920 et cetera. 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:08.440 And I think this is going to be one of 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:09.480 the biggest stories of our time. 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.760 Yeah, with China specifically, there's still a big question, which 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.640 is whether or not the censorship of the Internet basically 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.400 allows it to act as a sort of like safety 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.279 valve that lets people, you know, blow off some steam, 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:26.800 but not enough steam to actually threaten the regime over there, 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.680 or whether it's actually a tool or could be a 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:34.080 tool of social change. Because people are to some extent 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:36.159 allowed to say some stuff. I think that question is 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:38.120 like still kind of unanswered. 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:40.240 Well, I'm very excited to say. 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.000 We really do have the perfect guest, someone who has 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:47.000 written a fascinating new book all about the Chinese Internet. 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.159 We're going to be speaking with Yiling Lui is the 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:51.839 author of the new book The Wall Dancers. Thank you 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:53.159 so much for coming on odd. 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:54.720 Lots, Thanks so much for having me. 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:56.599 What is this book and why is it called The 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:57.400 Wall Dancers? 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:01.400 Yeah, so the Wall Dancers. The comes from this term 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:04.840 in Chinese which is called dancing in shackles, and it 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.440 was first used in the early two thousands by journalists 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.760 to describe what it means to write and report under 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.400 state constraints, but slowly became viral as a term that 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.240 was used by I've seen like software engineers use it, 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:23.200 musicians use it, science fiction writers use it. And it 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.520 really resonated with me, this idea of the dance, because 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:30.680 it captured this idea that to live and navigate Chinese 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.520 society is a dance. It's this dynamic push and pull 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:38.479 between state and society. It means living in this place 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:42.159 that's on one hand rich with innovation and yet on 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:47.560 the other hand, rigidly constrained, and I came to see 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:50.800 that this dance was most dynamic on the Internet. What 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:54.440 we know is the space behind the great firewall, and 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.960 the people that I thought were really good and adept 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.240 at navigating this terrain, I came to know them and 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:02.359 call them dancers. 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.320 So this was the really interesting thing about your book 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:07.520 and the reason we wanted to talk to you. You 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:11.799 tell this story of the Chinese Internet through the perspective 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:16.800 of individuals, rather than say, the Internet platforms that have 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:19.520 come to dominate the space, or even from a sort 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:22.280 of state centric point of view. What do you get 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:27.520 out of interviewing or following individuals versus taking that other approach, 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:29.400 which you know there are plenty of books out there 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.120 about the rise of Wabo and stuff like that. 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.880 I think the main reason behind this choice was if 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:39.240 you look at Western news headlines or headlines in general 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:43.640 about China and trades's technology, it almost always falls under 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:47.200 one of two binaries. It's reduced to very simple terms. 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:52.159 One is China the kind of sprawling economic juggernaut that's 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:55.800 building humanoids and high speed rail and it's place of 0:06:55.839 --> 0:07:00.120 boundless opportunity. And then you have the like techno authoritary 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:04.920 and oppressive regime where mindless people have no agency of 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:08.159 their own. And I think the big issue here is 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:10.920 that the Chinese Internet is always framed through and seen 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.640 through the lens of American national security and economic interests. 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.120 And I wanted to force people out of these tropes. 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:21.080 And the way to see kind of China and the 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.480 Chinese Internet and all its complexity and contradictions is through 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:27.440 people and through individual lives. 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:30.600 Yeah, you start the book by telling the story of 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:33.840 a gay man who is able through the Internet to 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:37.920 build community, find people eventually at a time when, of 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:42.560 course there was extreme repression. Homosexuality was I think illegal 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:45.320 at the time. You know, again, this seems both in 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.960 China and the US what probably a lot of people 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.320 were very hopeful for with the Internet, this idea that 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:54.680 people were going to be able to find community, like 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:59.000 minded individuals find acceptance in these digital spaces. And I 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:02.520 suppose in many cases since this happened, But it is 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.800 interesting how in both the global context and the Chinese 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:08.840 specific context there were similar stories being told. 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:09.800 There were similar hopes. 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:13.640 Definitely, I think of the story of the Internet in China, 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.360 at least as a romance. But I'm realizing, you know, 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.880 as you discussed earlier, the story of the global Internet 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:21.720 was also a romance. The story of the World Wide 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:25.480 Web was also a romance. I certainly bought into the 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.280 narrative that you bought into. I thought we were on 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:32.400 this like teleological arc too, towards liberalization, and I think 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:34.640 a lot of people bought into that narrative, this idea 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.240 that you know, the Chinese Internet, despite the fact that 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:41.080 the firewall existed very early, was going to push people 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:44.320 towards greater openness, greater freedom, greater connection, and it would 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:45.920 just keep going on from there and there. 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.640 So talk to us about what is and isn't allowed 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:53.839 on the Chinese Internet then, because as you say, it's 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:58.360 more nuanced than just like outright censorship in many ways, 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.360 although sometimes it is just out censorship and you can't 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:04.240 say a specific word like tan and men or something 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:06.760 like that. And I remember, actually now that i'm thinking 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:08.920 about it, in the early two thousands, when I was 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:13.400 in Beijing, like the censorship was very obvious, like certain 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:17.080 sites were just outright blocked. On TV, you'd be watching 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:19.920 CNN and suddenly it would go black during a news 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:22.680 story or you get newspapers delivered to you that had 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:27.640 literally physical like sentences crossed out with a black marker. 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:29.920 But what isn't isn't allowed. 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:32.600 I will start off by saying that if I could 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:36.480 answer that question really accurately, I would be a very 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.800 rich woman right now. I think the reason being, like, 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:43.920 the censorship ecosystem thrives off of vagueness, right the fact 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.040 that it's vague, the fact that there are no red 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:50.040 lines is what allows it to function so effectively. I 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.560 will say that it's changed quite dramatically over the last 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.760 few decades, especially since you were last Thera Tracy. So 0:09:57.240 --> 0:09:58.880 you know, back in the day, I would say the 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.400 lines were much clearer. A lot of people would say 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.360 things like no Tianan Men, no Tibet, no Taiwan. They 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:07.920 would call them the three t's. So censorship back then 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:11.080 was very much allowed about a dissent against the government, 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.920 criticism of the government, but most importantly, anything that would 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:19.319 provoke collective action. So if there was you know, news 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:22.560 of a protest or news of people gathering, or any 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.520 type of unease that might boil into something bigger and 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:29.480 bring people together into a physical town square, that got censored. 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.720 But over the years, I would say, particularly in the 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.959 mid twenty tens, that's come to encompass also anything that 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.640 veers from the party's ideological agenda. So this is where 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:44.239 you have statements coming out saying we don't want unhealthy 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:47.520 marital values appearing on the internet, like we don't want 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.080 I think recently in twenty twenty one, sissy boys caught 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:52.480 added two things that got needed to be taken down 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:53.400 the Internet. 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.240 No cissies allowed. I'm imagining like a hand drawn sign 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:57.640 on a tree house or something. 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.720 Yeah, and you know, like everything that comes, you know, 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.040 everything that's part of its ideological agenda is now scrubbed off. 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:07.000 And another thing that to add on there is like 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.679 the excessive flaunting of wealth. You know, that's something that's 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:12.800 new that used to be all over the interest back 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:14.000 in the day. 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:14.760 We need that here. 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:18.120 It's driving people crazy because they look on Instagram. And 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.640 I remember being, you know, during COVID, and I was 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:23.679 like in my house and seeing like all these people 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:24.400 like flying around. 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:25.800 I got very resentful. 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.839 What about criticisms of the government, But not from an 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.960 ideological perspective per se, because sometimes you read a story 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:37.240 like someone will have gotten hit by a train or 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:40.520 a car and maybe the police like didn't do an investigation. 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.760 You see this big uproar. Talk to us about what's 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:47.599 allowed and how they how the managers of the firewall 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.360 are managers of the rules, not the firewall per se. 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:55.760 Think about these incidents like just yeah, criticism of government handling. 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:58.720 Of things again, like I can't say with you know, 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:02.000 definitively taken down and what's now taken down. I would 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:05.640 veer on saying that whenever there's any criticism of any 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:09.120 kind of local official, local government, that's technically looked on 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:12.240 with great caution and taken down. But how it actually 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:17.480 works behind the scenes is that some higher level top 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:22.320 regulators say that the Chinese Cyberspace Administration the CAC will 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:26.480 write a directive. So maybe there's local corruption in some 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:31.680 county and news starts spilling out, and whoever is part 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:35.560 of that regulatory committee will be writing a directive that says, hey, 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:39.520 downplay this, let's not have this appear on way BOA. 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:43.320 That will then get passed on to WAYBOS sensors who 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:47.200 then start scrubbing that off their newsfeed, or it happens 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:51.120 the other way where WAYBOS sensors aren't even receiving that directive, 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:55.520 but kind of proactively, like a student who is really 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.959 nervous about upsetting their teacher in advance will just go 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:01.680 and scrub that off even before receiving that directive. 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:06.880 Oh interesting, so self censorship basically, yes, So how labor 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:11.599 intensive is the censorship process nowadays? Because you know, I imagine, 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:14.800 as you said, directives get made and someone has to 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:17.439 enact them. But on the other hand, so much of 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:21.120 the Internet nowadays is ruled by algos and most recently 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:25.400 AI you could just you know, design an algorithm that 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:29.040 always downplays political scandal or something like that. 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:33.080 I would say, hugely labor intensive. 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:35.080 Armies of wu maao, that's what they're called, right. 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.720 Yeah, So that specifically refers to the fifty cent army umao, 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:43.480 but that specifically refers to not necessarily state sponsored actors 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:46.800 or not necessarily state paid individuals, but people who are 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:50.079 kind of pumping patriotic content. 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.400 Hobbyist nationalists exactly exactly. 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:54.960 So you know, there's actually not too much of a 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.200 difference between the wum maao and maybe some of the 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:00.960 patriotic trolls and insults that you see you next today, 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.240 right to what extent is are some of the people 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:09.120 who are posting like pro Trump propaganda on Twitter essentially 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.480 the same as Umao. There's this dynamic called flooding, which 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:17.760 refers to when in cells or a particular group of 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:23.800 online individuals are pumping just content onto a news feed 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.400 to try to get rid of news that they don't 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:28.480 want people to look at. And that takes place in 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.280 China all the time. But I think that's different from 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:36.440 actual employees who work at places like Waybul or Doeing, 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:41.360 who are just spending every single day deleting stuff off 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:43.760 the web. And you know, when I interviewed, actually for 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.880 the book, a censor for Wayboo and he started working 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:50.320 there in twenty eleven. I think he was one of 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:52.920 one hundred and fifty employees. This is right when waybul 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.600 was founded, and he said, you know, by twenty twenty 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.080 he had left already. They're probably like ten thousand. 0:14:58.520 --> 0:14:58.840 Wow. 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:16.840 Yeah, I mean this is sort of what I was 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:21.320 struck by reading your book, which is that you know, 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:25.119 you talk about these people who are maybe they're bots, 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:30.000 maybe they're paid, maybe they're just naturally impelled to join 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:33.640 a mob and want to flood something. But some of 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:37.920 these patterns do not seem distinct to China. It's almost 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:42.120 like they're endemic to the Internet itself, regardless of what 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:43.200 the official rules are. 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.920 Absolutely right, we have no sense of whether or not 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:51.040 these are kind of homegrown, grassroots patriotic flames that are 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.440 just amplified. And you know when I say that, doesn't 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.080 that sound very similar to what's taking place on the 0:15:56.080 --> 0:16:00.320 American Internet. I forget the name of that one in 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:04.920 Twitter influencer who's kind of been talked about. It's Trump's 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:07.000 right hand women. Do you know who I'm talking about? 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:07.840 Laura Lumer? 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:09.880 Yes, Laura Lumer really isn't there. 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:12.360 I'm gonna say you have to be more specific because 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:13.760 there's quite a few nowadays. 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.480 But yeah, Laura Lumer, you know when we read news 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:18.680 articles on her, it's is she being paid out? Is 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:20.440 she not being paid out? And you know, that very 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:22.400 much reminds me of the dynamic with a lot of 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.480 Chinese patriotic influencers, Like they very much earnestly hold the 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.480 views that they're sharing, but is there a cut being 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.880 taken by amplifying those views and supporting those views? 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.920 Since we've mentioned Wabo a couple times now and you know, 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:39.840 you just gave us that anecdote about the number of 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:43.640 sensors they had, and they have experienced phenomenal growth. One 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.480 thing I never understood about Wabo is the kind of 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:50.760 origins story, because my understanding is they were basically born 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:55.360 out of censorship. So there was unrest in a room 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:57.920 cheet I think it was, and so a bunch of 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:03.320 existing Internet platforms either got you know, repressed, or taken 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.399 down completely. And then the founder of Wabo was like, 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:09.320 I know, this is an opportunity for me to get 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:13.600 in and start my own platform. I never understood that mindset. 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.160 What was it that he thought he could do that 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:18.080 other platforms had failed to do. 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:23.360 Yeah, So Wayble actually means little blog or microblog, and 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:27.520 Wabo is shorthand for Sino Weboa, which is the full 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:31.800 company's name. But before two thousand and nine, honestly, before 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:35.119 twenty eleven, there were many, many way boys, or there 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.280 were dozens of companies that were all trying to be 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:42.480 microblogging platforms. So there was a platform called Fanfu, there 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:44.560 was a whole bunch. There's a platform called renren which 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:46.760 was not really a micro bloging platform, is kind of 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:49.920 like a Chinese Facebook, so to say back people people right, 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:54.960 exactly exactly. And the founder of Sino Weibo actually founded 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:57.840 what is now known as Weboa in two thousand and nine, 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.200 and he did a sally the same thing as all 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.040 these other companies. He just did a better job of censoring. 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.560 That's really what happened, as you mentioned during the protests 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:10.720 in Urumji in two thousand and nine. He just did 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:15.600 a much better job of scrubbing information off the wavebood 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:17.920 feed and the time and didn't get shut down where 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:19.720 all of these other companies got shut down. 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.200 It's interesting hearing you describe. 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.159 We did an episode actually his last March with Kaiser 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:28.359 Quo of the Seneca Podcast. We're talking a little bit 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:30.919 about how Chinese policy making works and this idea of 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:34.600 this sort of decentralized centralized like KPIs right. So Beijing, well, 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:38.040 this was in the industrial policy context. Beijing says we 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.800 want more solar production or more electric vehicle production, and 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.280 then all the provincial leaders figure out what that means 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.200 in the context of their region and then work closeta 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:52.320 autonomously to satisfy that. It sounds similar to some extent 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:55.879 with the rules around censorship, especially when you describe some 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.960 of that preemptive self censorship of everyone trying to figure 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.480 out the right level or approach that is consistent with 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:03.719 the broader level mandate. 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:04.200 Yeah. 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:06.600 No, that's a really good point and definitely a parallel 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:08.679 that I would draw. You know, For example, if they 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:12.880 were to release industrial policy, a tech company ceo will 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:16.000 then like read that policy very carefully and be like, Okay, 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:19.760 how can we align our companies direction with the rhetoric 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.119 of this policy directive. The same goes with censorship, you know. 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.359 So one of the subjects that I profile is the 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.479 CEO or was the CEO of this skating dating app Blued. 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:34.040 And so if they release a censorship directive saying we 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.920 don't want cissy boys on our platform, he's going to 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:39.720 go and look very carefully at the platform and see 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:41.960 how are we going to make sure there are no 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:43.920 cissy boys on our app? 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:44.280 Right? 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.919 And so there is definitely this sense of I don't know, 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.280 if you have read Harry Potter, I never. 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:51.800 Did, I did? 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:52.800 Did you not? 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:54.240 I never did? I never did? 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:58.040 But Tracy will get listeners will get it. 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:03.040 This analogy really hit it home for me. But you 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:04.720 remember Dolores's umbrage. 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:06.440 Yeah, oh, she was creepy. 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:06.800 Yeah. 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:10.239 You remember how she would like post these decrees and 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:12.240 then all of the and she would just post them 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:14.320 on the wall and then they would be kind of vague, 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:17.439 and then students would freak out and scramble, and you know, 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:22.240 people like Malfoy would aggressively over and interpret that. I 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:23.440 think that's the dynamic. 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:25.200 And yeah, I. 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.760 Think this is an underappreciated point sometimes, but like the 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:33.480 vagueness in the decrees is done on purpose, right, It's 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.639 so that like you're never really sure what is and 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.159 isn't allowed, and so you do start self censoring. And 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:42.760 also you know, if the government wants to go after you, 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:45.919 they can do it because the rule is purposely vague. 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:46.800 Yeah. 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:49.200 And it also means that, like each of these companies 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:53.680 have these huge keyword databases of censored words, and those 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:59.479 are extremely valuable. They're like proprietary assets, where you know, 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:03.800 they that is how they keep their company alive essentially. Right, 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:07.000 if you have a better keyword database than the company 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.119 down the road, you're gonna have a better chance of surviving. 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:13.000 So just on the keywords. This is one of the 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:15.760 most fascinating things about the Chinese Internet, and I think 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:17.760 a lot of people know about it at this point. 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:21.600 But you know, internet users are very creative in bypassing 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:25.239 the sensors, so they're always coming up with codes, some 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:28.879 of which sound very funny if you don't know the context, 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:32.600 Like isn't there one horse mud horse mud or mud 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:37.600 grass horse or something fighting a crab exactly the poo, Yeah, 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:41.080