Facebook, RenRen and China’s Firewall

While many people in the world know about Facebook, not many people know about Renren, a popular social networking site in China.

So, how does Renren work? Simple, it works just like Facebook. In terms of features and design layouts, Renren and Facebook look almost identical. For this reason, many people claim that Renren is a Facebook copycat. But this is no surprise, since China is famous for copying almost everything. Why should social networking websites be an exception? And in this case, it clearly isn’t.

Despite the high level of similarities between Renren and Facebook, the two websites have never encountered any stiff competition from each other, yet. Strange? No, it’s normal, thanks to the great Firewall of China.

The Firewall

Thanks to the firewall, Facebook is blocked in China. The result is a separation of the two into their respective markets. RenRen dominates China while Facebook attempts to rule the rest of the world.

Many might question the existence of the Firewall. To quench your curiosity, here are two reasons in brief: (1) To protect China’s local social networking industry, and (2) to effectively control information flow from the outside world.

Even though there are similarities in features and layouts, they have a fundamental difference: user freedom. Just like the overall Internet environment in China, all information circulating within Renren is closely monitored. Any journals, photo albums, or even status updates could be removed, at any time, if the administrators feel the information undermines the government’s view or policy. Let me give you a recent example.

Liu Xiaobo

On Oct 8, the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee granted Nobel Peace Prize 2010 to Chinese citizen Liu Xiaobo for “his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China”. As soon as this announcement was made, thousands of Renren users began to share their thoughts. In fact, many paid honor to this Nobel Prize Laureate, which weren’t well received by the administrator. Within a few hours, all these information were removed.

It’s a classic masterpiece by the efficient firewall and perhaps, I should really stop here before Penn Olson gets blocked by China. Feel free to leave your comments below though.

[Image credit: whl.travel]