介绍:
Lincoln: Breaking up in the digital age can be rough, but Facebook has made the process a bit easier with a new tool that hides posts made by people's ex-partners. Now, Michael, what exactly is going on here? Why is Facebook so concerned for your emotional well-being
Michael: OK, well, at the moment, if you decide you don't want to be reminded of someone's existence on Facebook, you need to either unfriend them or block them. If you're looking to maybe get with a new partner, for example, you might not want that new partner to see so many photos of you with an ex-partner. If you have someone who you see on a fairly regular basis, who you're not really keen on their Facebook page – maybe they post lots of inane chatter that you're not really interested in, and the easiest way of getting rid of that from your feed is just by unfollowing them.
Lincoln: Well, let's hope none of them are listening to this, and they'll know why you haven't been liking or commenting on any of their statuses(!) Wu You?
WY: I mean, this is a very good promotion for Facebook, but for the unfollow part Michael mentioned, I think that is an old function, so in that case, we can see that it has already been existing for a long time, and then suddenly, Facebook said, "OK, we are now bringing you a new function that you can do this [with]," but that was more of an old wine inside of a new bottle. They just gave it a new name. Nowadays, we are seeing we are living in a digital age, so there has been a tailor-made or personally-designed news feed, so this time, Facebook has provided you with some kind of tailor-made functions, so that you can unfollow or untag someone, and then it will help you avoid reading his news again, so I think it is a very good idea.
Lincoln: Just looking back at relationships on Facebook, a lot of people are very… It's kind of an extension of PDA, public displays of affection. It's an extension of that, digitally, at least.
Michael: Now, that's an interesting point of view, Lincoln(!)
Lincoln: No, I think so! I feel like we've all seen couples on Facebook, on various social media. Now, Wu You, can you maybe, for some listeners who aren't as clued up as the rest of us on Chinese social media, can you maybe talk a little bit about the Chinese version of Facebook? What would that be? [WY: Wechat!] Would you refer to Wechat as the Chinese version of Facebook?
WY: It's a little bit different, because we can see that usually people will use Facebook on websites, on their computer, and we will use Wechat mainly on our cellphone. And then we have the Wechat Moments, which is more like a microblog, and then you can see my posts, but you first need to be my friend, and then we can also do the untagging and unfollowing function in our Wechat, and also, another very popular social media is QQ, in China. It has a huge amount of users in China, and also in overseas countries, and then we can see QQ is very convenient – when people are communicating with them, they can suddenly send them messages, or even have video chatting.
Lincoln: But does QQ have this Facebook-like quality, where you put together a timeline and people can look through your life, or is that more Wechat Moments?
WY: I think there has been this kind of QQ space, where you can post your blog articles or your pictures on it. It's more like a combination of Facebook, those chatting social media, and also blog. It has all the combination of these functions.
Michael: I would argue Wechat's more like a hybrid of Facebook and Whatsapp, and there's also "Lucky Money", which is a particularly Chinese application. [WY: E-red envelope!] Exactly.
Lincoln: Now, Wu You, would you put your relationship status on Facebook?
WY: I wouldn't. I think nobody would care about that, and I don't want to expose too much information on that! You know what is more serious? When your parents want to follow you on social media.
Michael: Yeah. I know my dad's on Facebook, but we've got a tacit agreement that we won't friend each other.
Lincoln: Ah, I have no choice – both my parents are on Facebook. They're clued-up enough to follow me or to find me, but they're not clued up enough to do anything more harmful than that!
