With the disappearance of the Internet in China, “we lose parts of our collective memory”
The Chinese know that the Internet in their country is different. There is no Google, YouTube, Facebook or Twitter. They use euphemisms online to communicate things they shouldn't mention. When their posts and accounts are censored, they accept it with resignation.They live in a parallel online universe. They know it and even joke about it.Now they are finding that, beneath a facade full of short videos, livestreaming and e-commerce, their internet – and collective online memory – is disappearing in pieces.A widely shared May 22 WeChat post reported that nearly all information posted on Chinese news portals, blogs, forums and social media sites between 1995 and 2005 was no longer available.“Chinese Internet is collapsing at an accelerating pace,” reads the headline. Predictably, t...