Top Topics on China Internet in 2019

China has a strict and controlled internet environment, but technology has allowed its people to escape the ‘Great Firewall’ and find ways to talk about how they feel or challenge the government.

Here are the top China tech and internet topics that appeared in 2019.

Hong Kong Protests

Hong Kong demonstrations have appeared on both social media platforms and media channels and dominated the news landscape for quite some time.

Large scale protests have affected the country’s economy, but experts say it shouldn’t last long and HK should be back on its feet. Also, those who enjoy playing lotto shouldn’t have any issues getting data HK whenever they need it.

International media started giving it attention, to which the Chinese government responded by censoring the search term ‘Hong Kong’.

Civilized Behavior

News about ‘civilized behaviors’ are cropping up ahead of the proposed social credit system. The government is yet to implement or outline details but has largely implored its people to be more ‘civilized’.

In Jinan, men who rolled up their shirts and exposed their bellies were reprimanded. Nanjing warned jaywalkers that their social credit would be affected if they didn’t wait for the green light to show. Eating on the subway was banned as well as it was considered uncivilized.

Facial Recognition

Facial recognition is a double-edged sword. It can bring greater good by helping solve crime, but there’s also the danger of it having a negative impact on the average citizen.

China has been aggressively pioneering facial recognition- Alipay, a payment service has brought the technology to consumers who wanted to buy products, but the general public didn’t want to expose their face. Moreover, imperfections are still present and AI can sometimes mistake movements as a different action.

ZAO, an app where users could put their faces in TV characters and film was banned as it was believed to violate privacy and fraud regulations.