Weibo, a microblog service in China like twitter, is just like a cup of espresso. When you drink first time, you will find no special taste.
But when you reflect the bitter taste left in the mouth, you would eventually fall in love with it.
People who write a post onto Weibo first time or have written several times told me there is not much fun. It’s just a waste of time.
If you think like that, you are wrong.
I am not a Weibo freak. However, I know a variety of different opinions and see what is happening on Weibo.
I believe it’s Weibo’s power.
“Guo Meimei incident” started from Weibo, and went with Guo’s microblogs.
Red Cross fell into trouble. Red Cross had to open a Weibo account to explain the matter in order to correct the situation.
However, Red Cross didn’t achieve its original purpose, because every post would be criticized by netizens.
On Weibo, internet users would thoroughly oversee what you say and what you do, therefore, there won’t be any room for any false stories, lies or fabrications.
Actually, from demolitions rights, crackdown trafficking to Guo Meimei incident, and seeking advice from Weibo netizens, the Weibo gradually becomes a part of our life.
And it’s increasingly playing an important role.
In this sense, Weibo is no longer a channel of personal consolation or expressing of personal feelings.
It also has become a comprehensive form of involving even with social issues and civic development issues of the country for the public.
New statistics show the number of internet users in China has hit 485 million due to the very much spurred popularity of microblog in the country.
We cannot underestimate the probability of Weibo power.
Now, more and more news are reported out of the Weibo first.
The news starts not from the media but among the people.
The public can see the development of the changes and in a way supervised the handling of the events and their resolutions.
A major cause for the Weibo’s skyrocketing popularity is due to the bypass information filtering and regional surveillance, so that the news can be directly delivered to the people in the country and even to the world.
The result is that the truth cannot be avoided and cannot be hidden.
In fact, Weibo can be a great and important form of gaining public credibility as in the case of Huili county of Sichuan province.
And more and more officials open an account with Weibo, hoping to have good impressions.
However, Weibo is just a medium. Opening an account doesn’t mean that you automatically gain people’s trust.
This will be solely relied upon how those officials really act and do.
Weibo mainly is very popular among youngsters. It’s quite sure Weibo will affect the younger generation in their thoughts, attitudes and enthusiastic participations in social issues.
On Weibo, everyone has opportunities to express as if it’s their common platform.
And there are also great positive aspects where people could change current political and social environments.
The public express their opinions and the government listens to them.
According to the public platform and communication mechanisms on Weibo, the country and the society could become more harmonious.
But people shouldn’t make mistakes as if Weibo is a panacea, mainly due to its anonymous and hidden dimensions. The rumors also can spread quickly on Weibo. Some amplified opinions might incite public sentiments.
However, Weibo also needs public’s effective guidance for the healthy, long-term development for its continually growing role in Chinese society.
Ma Xin is an editor of M4.cn and can be reached at tomaxin@163.com.