Photo Source, Reuters
Clubhouse is a voice-based social media app
As the audio-only social media’Club House’ recently gained popularity in mainland China, there are concerns that the authorities are trying to block access to it.
Clubhouse is currently only available on the iPhone operating system (iOS), and you can use the app only if you are invited by an existing user.
Users can open clubs for conversations on specific topics, and voice-based discussions take place in a real-time conversational format.
After signing up, it is evaluated as an advantage that you can easily hear conversations of celebrities in the discussion room, and you can freely enter the chat room that suits your interests and get the information you want.
‘Club House’, which was launched in April of last year, and has been used mainly in Silicon Valley, quickly spread as well-known celebrities such as Elon Musk Tesla founder and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg joined the public.
In Korea, the clubhouse has quickly gained popularity, especially in the IT industry. Not only founders representing the Korean startup industry such as Kim Bong-jin, Chairman of Elegant Brothers and Kim Seul-ah, CEO of Market Curly, but also famous celebrities such as’Rainbow’ Ji-suk and’Clazziquay’ Horan have started using this app.
Since only invited people can join, the used trading platform’Carrot Market’ is so popular that the invitation to join the clubhouse is traded.
The reaction in China is also grim.
China bans Western social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and thoroughly censors the Internet, but clubhouses were not banned until recently.
Another great advantage is that the discussion content is not saved separately. This is because once the debate is over, censorship by the Chinese government can be avoided. Separate recordings or external transmission of the discussion are not permitted.
As a result of the BBC coverage, discussions on sensitive topics that are not easily mentioned online due to the Chinese government’s censorship, such as a room for free discussions on Taiwanese independence, were spotted in the clubhouse.
It served as an emancipation of debate on topics taboo by the Chinese government, such as the pros and cons of democracy, Hong Kong Security Law and Xinjiang Uighur human rights issues.
Clubhouse can only be signed up with an invitation, so invitation codes were traded up to 400 yuan (about 70,000 won) on e-commerce sites.
With the clubhouse’s growing popularity, it is predicted that Chinese authorities will soon ban the use of the app. In fact, thousands of articles were posted on the 8th that there was a clubhouse access failure in China.
Chinese authorities have yet to disclose their official position on the use of the clubhouse.
Analysis: Slow Response
Kerry Allen, Chinese Media Analyst
The clubhouse will be a headache for Chinese censorship authorities. In particular, during the upcoming Lunar New Year holidays, the authorities are not actively censoring.
Overseas apps are usually blocked as soon as they gain popularity in the Chinese market. However, in the case of the clubhouse, it was possible to use it without any restrictions over the past few days. Users in mainland China were able to have active conversations with users in foreign countries. Then, the app suddenly became unusable.
The Chinese authorities may not have expected the clubhouse to become so popular. Recently, in China, the popularity of domestic mobile phone makers such as Huawei has skyrocketed, because Club House is only available on the iPhone operating system (iOS).
It is not yet known whether the clubhouse has been officially banned in China. However, on Weibo on the 8th, more than 100,000 photos and articles appeared on Weibo with the hashtag’#ClubhouseBlocked. Soon the hashtag disappeared from Weibo.
Hwangu Shibo, a sister magazine of the People’s Daily, an agency of the Chinese Communist Party, objected to the fact that the clubhouse has become a’sacrificial site for freedom of expression’ and expressed concerns that it could be used to spread anti-China propaganda.
Still, he said, “This platform is still in the early stages of development,” suggesting that the app could come back if it maintains a friendly community atmosphere.
The Clubhouse has not officially revealed how many active users it has. Sensor Tower, a mobile analytics company, analyzed that the app would have been downloaded at least 2 million times. However, he predicted that there are cases where only the app was downloaded without an invitation.
In May of last year, the investment value of the clubhouse increased tenfold from about $100 million (about 120 billion won) to $1 billion this month (about 1.12 trillion won). Android app services haven’t been released yet.