Domain Update: Less .cn, More .com

It’s no longer illegal for individuals to grab a .cn, but this time you must register the thing with the Chinese government. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s also all that red tape to sift through just to do a website. And while the official People.com.cn’s bragging about the Chinese language version of .cn, .中国 (read: dot zhong guo), being registered by big banks, fact is: for too many of us, .com is still the way to go.

The stats have it: official CNNIC numbers dating back to as recent as June 2010 show that we are seeing 13.7% less domains registered in China (probably much of that has to be the loss of all .cn domains) — a loss of 2.79 million or so domains. This is the first loss to happen since 2006 — and despite the fact that Chongqing is seeing an increase in .cn registrations, the general trend is more in favor of .com domains. (Figures see an increased market share for .com — that’s 535,000 more dot coms taken!)

Guess what: the porno people (as well as the dissidents and the bogus “med folks”) are now all on .com. And because the US controls the .com “system”, so to speak, China can only yell — and block — .com sites; it can’t take them away.

Chinese Microblogs: Censoring Links Now, Are We?

If you’re interested in posting reactionary propaganda indirectly — as in the form of discrete links — you’re in trouble.

Quite a number of microblogs — of note Sina and especially Sohu — are now double-checking your links that you embed into your tweets (or “microblog messages”, in 2.0-speak with Chinese characteristics, so to speak). Needless to say, “bad stuff” that’s hosted inside Chinese Internet domains are just simply going to be nixed. But what if that bit of polit/porn is hosted overseas?

This is where the link censors kick into effect. Apparently, you’re no longer getting working links to sites based outside China. Don’t ask how the techies did that — they just did it. If that website is based outside China (as in using a non-mainland China web server), that’s it. This is most likely the case if the foreign-website-in-question engages in “controversial content”.

We’re a fair bit sure, however, that someone inside the Middle Kingdom will find a way around this… don’t ask why, we just feel it’s coming…

Chinese Microblogs: Less Users, More Censors

Ever wonder why Twitter’s doing great with just 205 personnel and still manages to crank out 190 million pageviews a month?

Here’s something to ponder about: along the same lines of that stat we’ve just thrown out, Chinese “Twitters” (retermed “microblogs”), being on less libre PRC territory, has way less people in terms of the user base. Yet still, we’re seeing over a thousand people employed.

(Yep, we realize there’s a “number error”. Read on…)

Many of these folks are involved in this peculiar trade of being a “content inspector”. This is censorese for — well — censor. Post anything “inappropriate” (ie political), and your post just got deleted. That’s 90% of all tweets, according to @lzaiting.

And as long as there’s a censorship requirement of one form or the other, Chinese web sites will continue just chugging along — much like an overloaded freight train pulled by a locomotive dating from earlier in the last century.

Nanjing Explosion Cans New Phrase: “Who Let You Broadcast It Live?”

14:59 update: Tweep @multiple1902@ is now heading out live to the scene of the blast.

First, tragedy:

A powerful blast likely caused by a gas leak rocked a plastics factory in eastern China on Wednesday, killing at least six people and injuring hundreds, state media reported.

The explosion happened about 10 a.m. in downtown Nanjing, the capital of’ Jiangsu province in eastern China, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Xinhua said six people were reported as dead at hospitals treating victims of the blast, and that buildings and vehicles with 100 yards of the blast were badly damaged.

And this (typical here in China):

Officials who answered telephone calls at the Nanjing health department and city government would not comment. An official from the local Communist Propaganda Department said a statement would be released later.

Apparently, according to the Chinese-language twitterverse, the head of the Communist Propaganda Department, Ye Hao (叶皓) got pretty upset when live TV crews poured in — in no time. Media were treated to what could well be yet another 2010 catchphrase on the Chinese Interwebs: Who let you broadcast it live!? (谁让你做直播的)

There’s also footage of the explosion, as well as photos. Needless to say, there’s an increasing number of tweets coming out of this as even a few of the Twitterati head to the scene, live.

Han Han On Getting Married

Noted Chinese mainland blogger Han Han seems to be in Hong Kong today, and despite reports that the Q+A is going ahead “the old fashioned way” using pieces of paper instead of a microphone (probably for fear of folks being censored?), that hasn’t stopped Han from pulling out his legendary short’n’snappy responses.

One of which, may we note, considers marriage. Here’s what he said:

As a matter of fact, for me, as to when I become father will depend on fate and chance. I’ve a lot of friends who want to be dad but can’t; but some have become fathers just because they met a girl.

The Chinese believe in “fate and chance”, which is yuan fen in Mandarin, and this concept can be very alien to — well, aliens (ie foreigners).

Hold It — techblog86 is back!

Let’s just say that @DavidFeng took the first half of this month to further studies in the mediasphere, so to speak. One’s never too old to learn, and we’re hoping the readership’s learning new and interesting things about the Chinese web every day through techblog86.

techblog86 is now back, and the site’s going to get an infrastructure update soon, which will allow much more in the way of tweeted updates and “on-the-spot” posts.

We hope we didn’t leave you all in the cold!

Is Barack Obama A PRC Citizen After All?

The Chinese may have a PRC ID number already in store for President 2.0.

This is a fairly scary bit of “the news” as of late: there’s this bit of “fake ID software” on the Chinese Interwebs (which we’re going to stay legal and not post a link to) which can generate PRC ID numbers for just about any person on the planet. If you’ve had a bad night out, you can even attempt ones for Kim Jong-Il, Superman or even E.T.!

This bit of “official fakeware” (as we’re compelled to call it) found its raison d’être to get youngsters into Internet cafés with valid ID (as those kids back then could not usually get in unless they were 18; young counter-revolutionaries, we question?), but has now emerged as “dark side jokeware”. And while you might get away with a fake ID for, say, E.T., PRC criminal code will likely see you in jail or at least a fair bit poorer for creating fake IDs — a criminal offence in China, and likely everywhere else as well.

Legal experts speaking to the Beijing Evening News, however, point out that you’re only handcuffed if you do the deed — as in use a fake ID. Until then, a mere screen showing President 2.0’s PRC ID number, real or fake, is unlikely to get the Supreme People’s Court upset or anything. We caution, though, that this is borderline behavior — as in you’re clearly treading on very thin ice here. Your tech blogger will pay no-one a prison visit if he or she got in by — well, creating fake IDs.

(He’s like this as he’s a law-abiding Swiss citizen.)