His most recent post, from January 29th, seems particularly relevant (this was originally four consecutive posts, which I’ve ordered to make the statement easier to read):

It’s true that the internet has reactivated the grass-roots of an egalitarian public sphere of writers and readers. It also counterbalances the deficits from the impersonal and asymmetrical character of broadcasting insofar as it reintroduces deliberative elements in communication. Besides that, it can undermine the censorship of authoritarian regimes. But the rise of millions of fragmented discussions across the world tend instead to lead to fragmentation of audiences into isolated publics.

This observation seems important and true for public discussion on the internet in general — we tend to visit websites and read blogs that fit in with our interests and confirm our views, rather than exposing ourselves to opinions that push our thinking and challenge us to find common ground. A particularly poignant example of this is political blogging, where people tend to read and link to blogs that share their own political leanings, creating online bubbles that never really have to touch. Even when certain platforms (like facebook) are widely used, they allow us to stay confined to our own circle of friends. So far, the internet has not proven to be the democratizing force or arena for public discourse that many hoped it would be.

From what I’ve seen, this seems to hold true in China as well. Sometimes topics gain wide exposure online, but more often than not, those topics fall into the category of new, exciting but basically unimportant gossip, and quickly prove to be fads. Any real and potentially threatening discussion is undermined by the 50 cent party and by censorship. The censors can’t be everywhere all the time, but maybe they don’t need to be — small bubbles are not threatening, and when something does expand beyond a small bubble, then they swoop in and block that content.

I don’t know what the solution to this problem is. Having real-name registration seems like it would at least encourage people to be more civil online (a first step towards constructive discussion), but also probably risks stifling debate. Either way, it’s helpful for observers of the online world (like me) to keep in mind that very few online fora represent a “cross-section” of the population, and online comments, debates and surveys should almost always be taken with a grain of salt. The more we try to push ourselves to not just read content that doesn’t fit in with our bias, but also to comment thoughtfully and maybe allow our own positions to be moved, the better it has to be for building a strong society.

A recent report revealed that the going rate for such a campaign averages 50,000 yuan ($7,315). One firm boasted it has the most “experienced team”, with access to 100,000 freelancers, that can post thousands of articles on up to five popular forums and blog hosting sites, creating 200,000-400,000 visits. And they guarantee a quick sensation.

It seems the current pay for one posting is 50 cents. A typical job posting for this type of work says you can make 40 yuan a day by working two hours, which they say translates to 80 posts.

The Jia Junpeng phenomonon seems to have been an example of this type of PR campaign, and the rumor has it that the buzz over the Chinese Obama Girl was also created by on online PR campaign.

There are also allegations that PR companies pay people who have existing accounts on popular book and move review websites (like douban.com) to post positive reviews of upcoming movies, and compensate these reviewers based on how long they’ve had their accounts (since users can easily spot reviews inserted by PR companies if they all come from newly opened accounts which are only used to post positive reviews for one or a handful of movies). According to ESWN, there’s a very clear pricing scheme for reviews from different types of accounts:

Public relations companies are seeking to purchase used ID’s with the following requirements:
(1) registered prior to 2007
(2) written at least three movie reviews
(3) has no less than 50 friends
(4) able to maintain secrecy and have business ethics
(5) including but not restricted to Douban, Shiguang Net and other webites

The price card is as follows:
(1) Base price of 500 yuan.  One yuan extra for every day registered earlier than December 31, 2007
(2) Until December 3, 2009, each additional movie review from the fourth one will earn an extra 5 yuan
(3) Until December 3, 2009, each additional friend from the 51st one will earn an extra 2 yuan
(4) 100 yuan extra whenever the movie review appeared on the front page
(5) 50 yuan extra whenever the movie review appeared at the top spot of the movie review section
(6) 50 yuan for a positive review of the movie represented by the PR company
(7) 50 cents for a comment against a negative review of a movie represented by the PR company
(8) 25 cents for a personal attack comment against the poster of a negative review of a movie represented by the PR company.

I see these kinds of posts sometimes when I’m looking at reviews for hostels and hotels in China on websites like hostels.com — on English-language websites, their obvious Chinglish and over-the-top praise for the hostel in question (often places that have otherwise gotten overwhelmingly negative reviews) usually make them easy to spot, but it’s annoying nonetheless.

I don’t know if this apparent phenomenon of explicitly manipulating discussion forums and online reviews in order to promote a product is common in other countries as well, but to me, it seems like this is something that happens much more here in China than in other places I’ve been. And if that’s the case, it’s hard to say why. One guess would be that Western internet users seem to spend more of their online procrastination time in closed communities, where all of the people they interact with are people they have already met in real life, while Chinese users seem to spend more time (relatively speaking) on open discussion forums, and are more likely to accept friend requests from people they don’t know personally on social networking sites like renren.com. This wouldn’t apply to movie or hotel review websites, but could help to explain why creating an online trend by registering lots of fake usernames, or hiring people to post comments, might be more successful in China than in other places. Another possible explanation would be some sort of difference in codes of ethics among PR companies — maybe Chinese PR companies think that “fake” reviews are ok, while English-language PR companies are more worried about the backlash against their company or the product they’re promoting if/when people find out about the tactics.

And then there’s the “50 cent Party” (五毛党), people who are allegedly paid 5 mao by the government for each pro-government comment they post, which seems like a uniquely Chinese adaptation to an internet society. In my experience, it seems like people dismiss these comments as soon as they suspect that they come from a 五毛党-ist, but maybe these people influence public opinion more than I realize.

Being a savvy internet consumer is tough. When we’ve lost all of our old ways of evaluating those with whom we come into contact (things like personal ties, social standing, even body language and facial expressions), how do we decide who to trust? To me, all of this strengthens the case for why media institutions, which have the training and resources to investigate and follow up on important stories, continue to be important in a world where the internet allows information to flow more and more freely.