Information cascade, social media, and political stance in China
In this recent study on the role of information cascades in driving political polarization when engaging with different social network structures. Through a model that evaluates an individual’s reaction towards the news shared by their social ties to determine whether or not it is “preferable”, social networks would adjust their social ties to avoid providing unfavorable information in the future. It is concluded that social networks would politically sort people’s social networks depending on the political stances the new outlets showcase. As a result, individuals would passively avoid “unimportant news” through the information cascade. While this study is based on Americans’ usage of Twitter, the most political social media platform, I am interested to examine how this theory applies to social media users in China.
With the Firewall in place in China, Chinese netizens are restricted from accessing non-government approved social media sites, such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, just to name a few. Some of the major platforms, including Wechat, Weibo, Douyin, and the Little Red Book, are heavily censored by the government in controlling politically incorrect information from flowing in the internet. As a result, most information available to Chinese netizens are “validated” and “authorized” filtered information by the government, creating a huge cluster of information cascade. This leads to the question of to what extent was the political stance of Chinese netizens a stance by choice, or a stance enforced? While it is impossible to assess the exact impact it causes, I would like to provide some analyzes through the online discussions in Weibo during the Hong Kong Protests of 2019.
During the protest, discussions surrounding the protests were carefully controlled and censored due to its “dampening national security” nature. However, the scope of censorship in creating a one-sided narrative did not only come from a top-down process. When a female Chinese netizen spoke out in support of the protesters in Hong Kong in Weibo, instead of being canceled by the government, other netizens served as “human flesh search engine” – making screenshots of her comments and revealing her personal details online, labeling her a traitor. This is one of the many incidents when a minority voice or an opinion deemed as politically incorrect were posted on Weibo, with the author suffering from public shaming and creating a bad example in warning other users not to be vocal about their “incorrect” views. As such, a strong cluster of information is formed based on censorship and fear prevailing in the society, and creating a homogenous political opinion on the event itself. It is by no means representative of the political stance of the collective group, who are being silenced and canceled in the process. Yet, it was just an echo chamber effect needed in portraying a majority anti-protest sentiment for political purposes. Therefore, even if only homogenous political news exist in social media in the Chinese context, it may be hard to directly conclude that it is a genuine representation of the political stance of all Chinese. Intimidation, fear, and self-censorship played a large role in altering it.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2102147118
https://www.whatsonweibo.com/how-the-hong-kong-protests-are-discussed-on-chinese-social-media/