Authors: Haiqing Yu, RMIT University and Wanning Sun, UTS
WeChat is a news-sharing and content-distribution platform where people can easily share opinions and information. Despite the concerns about censorship, individuals and organisations have used the platform as an effective marketing, communication and publicity tool. This has created a need to adopt a more nuanced approach to the issue of censorship to consider its social, economic as well as cultural utility.
WeChat and its Chinese version Weixin interoperate as a multifunctional messaging and social media application owned by Chinese conglomerate, Tencent. Content is generated and circulated in a bazaar of semi-closed and public social circles. It allows users to decide who they want to be friends with in private and group chats and which friends they want to block from viewing their ‘Moments’. When it comes to public…
