Chinese users flock to US chat app Clubhouse
BEIJING:
Private
social audio app Clubhouse is attracting masses of new users from mainland
China, where the US app remains uncensored by authorities despite
flourishing discussions on rights, national identity and other sensitive
topics.
Western
social media apps including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are banned in China,
where the local internet is tightly censored to weed out content that could
undermine the ruling communist party.
The
Clubhouse app, launched in early 2020, saw explosive growth in user numbers earlier
this month after Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev held a
surprise discussion on the platform.
Its
chat rooms are only accessible via invites from current members, and as of
Sunday, invites to the platform were selling for between 50-400 yuan ($7.73 -
$69.59) on popular Chinese e-commerce sites.
Reuters
directly observed several Chinese-language ‘club’ conversations where thousands
of users listened to wide-ranging audio discussions covering topics including
Xinjiang detention camps, Taiwan independence and Hong Kong’s National Security
Law.
China’s
cyber authorities have become increasingly strict in recent years, widening the
scope of apps, media outlets and social media sites banned in the country.
While
Clubhouse remains uncensored, it is only available on iOS devices and is
unavailable in the local Apple app store, both major barriers for its
widespread use in China.
Mainland
Chinese users can access the app by modifying the location of their app store.
It’s
unclear why the app remains unblocked in China, though some foreign social
sites with small Chinese followings manage to operate under the radar of
censors, including 8kun, a central hub for QAnon followers.
In one
club chat centred on Hong Kong politics, activists, journalists and artists
discussed former US president Trump and his support base in the former
colony.
Another
popular Chinese language club on the site as of Saturday involved a rare open
exchange between netizens in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong over
heightened political tensions in the region.
The
discussion became a hot topic on China’s own Twitter-like social media site
Weibo on Saturday.
“I
don’t know how long this environment can last”, said one user in a popular
Weibo post that was liked over 65,000 times. “But I will definitely remember
this moment in Internet history.”
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