Abstract

WeChat in China has become so essential it is almost unimaginable to not have the application or not be influenced by the platform and submit to its immense level and capabilities of accessibility and convenience in Chinese daily life, from daily tasks like chatting with family to ordering lunch. In this paper, a discussion of the effects that censored media and information consumption has on digital advocacy and identity will be investigated with key examples including freedom of speech figures in the Chinese region and LGBTQ+ rights. China’s unique position as a monumentally powerful economic nation, that influences and is influenced by the West means that tracking and determining the population’s thoughts and engaging in discourse with the outside world has never been more important.

WeChat as the dominant social media in China is having an impact on the opportunities Chinese people are given to advocate, discuss and express themselves, thus leading to an expected social mould of identity. Technological mediation in online communities is bringing about new places for social groups to congregate virtually, highly personalising our identities online and impacting our identities in the real world (Delanty, 2018 pg. 201). The internet and social media have allowed virtual communities to exist and evolve, guided the users and the platforms they access to create new types of bonding (Delanty, 2018 pg. 201). With more and more people around the world adopting devices, the divide between who is online and who isn’t is shrinking, thus changing how we interact with each other and the individual psychological effects. The internet has disassembled the ‘tyranny of distance’ by making instant communication possible for people in urban to rural areas (Delanty, 2018 pg. 219). The new frontier of loosening boundaries on communication to everyone you know at any time could be a great thing, if the freedom of one to securely discuss safe, legal ideas is permitted. This essay will outline how identity and advocacy is undoubtedly influenced on and off the application. The essay explores these ideas using the platform WeChat and its censorship of social issues such as the MeToo movement, LGBTQ+ rights via restrictions on freedom of speech and monitoring of language. Furthermore the essay identifies how these communities are submitting to or fighting against the censorship variants on the relevant issue.

WeChat is China’s biggest social media platform, with currently over one billion monthly active users (Montag et. al, 2018, p.1). It is not surprising that with China’s large population and connections around the globe that it has created a social media platform that is equivalent of the West’s Facebook use, exceeding a billion users every month. With so much activity, WeChat provides an excellent example of an interconnected online, socially driven community. Despite the evolving growth and international recognition of WeChat, internal research on the effects WeChat usage has on societal and individual levels, is scarce (Montag et al., 2018, p. 2). Several factors can be responsible for this, however, strict government censorship and other mechanisms of control, results in boundaries and limits for how China and the outside world can analyse the platform (Harwit, 2017, p. 1). As a result, the communities that form and the spaces in which free identities emerge, have their topics policed, leading to real-world effects on identity for Chinese people. WeChat, like many social media platforms, has been linked to increased mental health disorders and device addiction (Montag et. al, 2018, pg.4). An increase in negative problematic behaviour has an impact on the Chinese identity, let alone a space that does not allow or encourage open thought and speech, leading to minimal space for advocacy on human well-being.

These mental health issues that have arisen through social media usage are monitored and taken advantage of by big data at the user’s expense. Spouses and partners tantalise? at viewing each other’s text messages, friends and co-workers anxiously veer one another’s online profiles, creating an undeniable truth that our online presence attaches itself to our real-world identity (Brusseau, 2019). These online choices and interactions are surveilled by big data and compiled to be used to create private profiles on users, actioned in ways usually unknown by the user

On WeChat, like many social media platforms, users typically add their own opinion or interpretation of the media they are sharing in a caption allowing a unique way of displaying identity or advocacy on an issue (Graham 2018, p.g 102). A Weibo, (platform similar to WeChat), example presented posted surround Pneumoconiosis, a lung disease, aggressively arguing the reasons why this disease is important for broader discourse and why the issue warrants further politicisation (Graham 2018, p.g 103). This authentic way to share information means that users may be more likely or less likely to share information similarly in real life or in other forms of communication depending on their comfort in that space. Anyone who uses social media regularly would understand the role of hashtags: essentially providing routes to explore content on the platform. In the space of identity and advocacy, hashtags provide a powerful way for groups to communicate and share information. China’s platforms like WeChat and Weibo are examples of applications that use hashtags to allow users to navigate different content. The MeToo movement in China was heavily censored due to Western origins and media, leading to Chinese users having limited ability to discuss the topic of sexual assault and other related opinions. (Abidin, 2021 pg.8). In instances where censorship applies to key words or terms, like #MeToo, members of the platform may substitute blacklisted words with different types of homonyms to avoid the algorithm’s detection (Abidin, 2021 pg.8). In China, users on WeChat were able to discuss #MeToo and share experiences and opinions by using the “#米兔”, (mi tu), literally translating to rice bunny as well as the emojis for rice and bunny to avoid censorship. This reflects the creative lengths in which Chinese users will go to in order to contribute their views to social justice issues that investigate an individual or collective identity, allowing space to advocate for others. In 2018, the Chinese media Sina began a ‘cleanup campaign’ on its hugely popular site Weibo, targeting content related to homosexuality in any way (Liao S, 2019, pg. 1). This cleanup provoked an emotional pushback from members of the site who rallied behind a bold hashtag “#IAmGay” (Liao S, 2019). Zhudingzhen, an openly gay online celebrity tweeted the hashtag along with “#whataboutyou?” prompting an explosion of retweets, likes, comments, shares and subsequent discussions on the topic (Liao S, 2019, pg. 1). The #IAmGay counter campaign demonstrates how online censorship that targets communities, identities and minority groups can have counterproductive outcomes when communities mobilise together for protection for online rights. In today’s world of immediate content sharing, online advocacy can emerge and spread in hours, allowing the space for immediate global news. The #IAmGay hashtag led to coming out stories being shared and a larger conversation to be had on gender and sexual discrimination in Chinese society (Liao S, 2019, pg. 1). LGBTQ+ rights and identity discovery in the West has made enormous progress through the availability of minority communities in direct relation to online platforms. Therefore, taking the messages and outcomes of the #IAmGay campaign to seed ideas for similar social progress.  

Suppression of speech is not new to China, with the controversial Tiananmen square massacre event. This event being the protest of Chinese students against government social policies. The significant impact of this in the West, but not confronted and essentially ignored in the East. Today, similar micro events regarding suppression of speech occur online rather than in the open to prevent violence or aggressive measures. Recently, in 2022, He Weifang, a prominent law professor in the Chinese region, accused Tencent the parent company of WeChat of trampling on civil rights by suspending his sixth WeChat account (Lau, 2022). Weifang notably supported Charter 08, a policy drafted in December 2021 calling for greater democracy and respect in the struggle for human rights, globally but more relevantly in China. Charter 08’s origins go back to anti-Soviet Czechoslovakia making it a clear similarity to opposition to current regimes in mainland China. This example of user account banning, outlines the zero tolerance for opinions, identities and advocacy that goes against China’s censorship regulations.

In China, social stability is essential to the ideal society that the CCP, (Chinese Communist Party), imposes on the nation, with disruption of this offensive to the ruling authorities (Graham 2018, pg. 98-99). This resonates to the previously outlined examples of the way the that the nation’s biggest social media company WeChat operates. One online digital ‘anti-advocacy’ in China is the Human Flesh Search (HFS), an engine that uses forms of mass technological collaboration to track down users that engage in online controversies against regime statutes (Graham, 2018 pg. 104). In Chinese society, ‘Guanxi’, a term meaning the ‘network of interpersonal connections’ carries significant importance in one’s identity (Graham, 2018 pg. 104). With social trust declining in recent years, leading one to only trust themselves and their inner circle, the role of Guanxi is personalised in online Chinese propaganda censorship, as a way to justify censorship using traditional culture as a mobilising agent to prevent beginnings of protest (Graham, 2018 pg. 104). Considering this, WeChat has become a platform that manipulates its users into accepting prevention of identity development and advocacy by convincing them the government’s ideology is better for the nation. From a Western perspective that is not for us to decide, however the suppression of speech is still apparent.

Though vast technological efforts on WeChat, an obedient, national online community might of prevented progression of identity and advocacy on issues and topics. However, it is evident that the platform cannot fully contain or eliminate this. With creative ways to discuss issues, despite censorship, individuals are able to form critical opinions. This is likely to continually evolve until the largest consequential event happens, either online or in the real world with users assembling to challenge disinformation and speech preventative measures. It is ironic that WeChat’s technological template of being so peer-to-peer friendly and built on users bestowing their thoughts to the web, that this in fact may be the downfall of the application if high levels of censorship continue against the general population. It is important to note that the examples and theories raised in this essay may not affect the entire population and thus has resulted in little action from the WeChat populace at large. In the virtual world of WeChat, it is easy to hide behind a virtual identity and confront the grapple of censorship than it is in person and in a highly ‘socially stable’ nation like China. This may be the only way to grapple what’s right for the future generations’ ability to critically examine information presented to them. Studying the current state of advocacy and identity in China through the lens of WeChat’s online communities, it is likely to remain online rather than in person with physical demonstrations.

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