![]() Chinese websites constitute one cluster, which resembles other such geo-linguistic clusters in terms of both its composition and degree of isolation. Analyzing audience traffic among the 1000 most visited websites, we find that websites cluster according to language and geography. We examine the case of China, where online blockage is notoriously comprehensive, and compare Chinese web usage patterns with those elsewhere. We develop a conceptual framework that integrates access blockage with social structures to explain web users' choices, and argue that users visit websites they find culturally proximate and access blockage matters only when such sites are blocked. We question this discourse for its assumption that if given access people would use all websites. The dominant understanding of Internet censorship posits that blocking access to foreign-based websites creates isolated communities of Internet users. These results suggest search engines can be architecturally altered to serve political regimes, arbitrary in rendering social realities, and biased toward self-interest. Analysis of query results of 316 popular Chinese Internet events reveals: 1) after Google moved its servers from Mainland China to Hong Kong, Google’s results are equally if not more likely to be inaccessible than Baidu’s, and Baidu’s filtering is much subtler than the Great Firewall’s (GFW) wholesale blocking of Google’s results 2) there is low overlap (6.8%) and little ranking similarity between Baidu’s and Google’s results, implying different search engines, different results and different social realities and 3) Baidu rarely links to its competitors Hudong Baike or Chinese Wikipedia, while their presence in Google’s results is much more prominent, raising search bias concerns. This study fills several research gaps by comparing query results (N=6,320) from China’s two leading search engines, Baidu and Google, focusing on accessibility, overlap, ranking, and bias patterns. Overall, this study finds that China’s search engines service the Chinese government’s self-interest by rendering overly biased social realities moreover, they produce a logic of “imagined communities” to promote and stimulate feelings of nationalism.ĭespite growing interest in search engines in China, relatively few empirical studies have examined their sociopolitical implications. This article finds: 1) Chinese search engines favor their own services, thereby offering a unique and selective content bias 2) Chinese search engines and online encyclopedias only provide Chinese sources that provide national biased knowledge, which raises search bias concerns and 3) Chinese online encyclopedias offer a strong one-sided argument that is positive to China. Furthermore, this study also analyses the differences between Wikipedia and China’s online encyclopedias concerning the “Meng Wanzhou Incident” in terms of content, structure, sources, and their main arguments. In order to address the research gap, this article compares the top thirty search results,from Baidu, 360 Search, Sogou Search, and Google regarding the “Meng Wanzhou Incident” while focusing on the overlap, ranking, and bias patterns. Although there is a growing interest in China’s search engines, relatively few researches systematically examine their role involving nationalism. Search engines play a vital role in positioning, organizing, and disseminating knowledge in China. ![]()
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