Jason Q Ning studies online surveillance and censorship at the Citizens Lab. He says there's lots of evidence that after the crackdown, traffic on Weibo tanked. Even though there are 600 million registered accounts on Weibo, there's only about 50 million active users per month.
To Bot or Not? That’s the big question for Data Scientist Gilad Lotan. His research suggests we may be damaging our online reputations if we choose not to play the fake follower game. Jason Q Ng, author of the book Blocked on Weibo, tells us why the Chinese government hates fake bots and why they targeted Black PR companies last summer. And your host imagines a future were humans are forced to shower their new Bot Overlords with unwavering attention. *********Click on the image for the whole story about this week’s installment**********