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Photo source, Reuters
Clubhouse is a voice-based social media app
As the audio-only social network ‘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 invited by an existing user.
Users can open clubs for topic-specific conversations, and voice-based discussions take place in a real-time chat format.
After registering, it is evaluated as an advantage that you can easily listen to the 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 launched in April of last year and has been used primarily 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 the founders representing the Korean startup industry, such as Kim Bong-jin, President of Elegant Brothers and Kim Seul-ah, CEO of Market Curly, but also famous celebrities such as’ Rainbow ‘Ji-suk and’ Clazziquai ‘Horan have started using this app.
Since only guests can register, the ‘Carrot Market’ used trading platform is so popular that invitations to join the clubhouse are exchanged.
The reaction in China is also disappointing.
China bans Western social media like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and thoroughly censors the Internet, but clubhouses weren’t banned until recently.
Another great advantage is that the contents of the discussion are not saved separately. This is because once the debate is over, censorship by the Chinese government can be avoided. Separate recordings or external broadcasts of the discussion are not allowed.
As a result of the BBC coverage, discussions on sensitive topics that are not easily brought up online due to Chinese government censorship were seen at the clubhouse, such as a room for free discussions on Taiwan’s independence.
It served as an emancipation from the debate on taboo topics by the Chinese government, such as the pros and cons of democracy, the Hong Kong Security Law, and the human rights issues of Xinjiang Uyghurs.
The clubhouse can only be registered with an invitation, so the invitation code was traded up to 400 yuan (approximately 70,000 won) on the e-commerce site.
With the growing popularity of the clubhouse, it is anticipated that the Chinese authorities will soon ban the use of the app. In fact, thousands of articles were posted on the 8th of a clubhouse access failure in China.
The Chinese authorities have yet to reveal 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 applications are generally 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 restrictions during the last days. Users from mainland China were able to have active conversations with users from foreign countries. Then all of a sudden the app was not available.
The Chinese authorities may not have expected the clubhouse to become so popular. Recently, in China, the popularity of domestic mobile phone manufacturers like Huawei has exploded, because Club House is only available on the iPhone (iOS) operating system.
We don’t know if the clubhouse has been officially banned in China yet. However, on Weibo on the 8th, more than 100,000 photos and articles appeared on Weibo with the hashtag “ #ClubhouseBlocked ” indicating that they experienced a clubhouse access disorder. Soon the hashtag disappeared from Weibo.
China’s state media Hwangu Shibo objected to the fact that the clubhouse has been turned into a “free speech” and expressed concern that it could be used to spread anti-Chinese propaganda.
Still, he said, “this platform is still in the early stages of development,” suggesting that the app can make a comeback if it maintains a friendly community atmosphere.
The Clubhouse did not officially reveal how many active users it had. Sensor Tower, a mobile analytics company, analyzed that the app had been downloaded at least 2 million times. However, he predicted that there may be cases where the app is only downloaded without an invitation.
In May of last year, the investment value of the clubhouse increased 10 times, from around $ 100 million (about 120 billion won) to $ 1 billion this month (about 1.12 trillion won ). Android app services have yet to launch.
