Baidu Tieba
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Baidu Tieba (Chinese: 百度贴吧; pinyin: bǎidù tiēbā; lit. 'Baidu Post Bar'), hosted by the Chinese Internet services company Baidu, is the most popular communication platform in China. Baidu Tieba was established on December 3, 2003. It is an online community, but it heavily integrates Baidu's search engine as well. Users may search for a topic of interest forum known as a "bar". If a bar doesn't exist, users may create one. Baidu Tieba accumulated over 300 million monthly active users by 2015, and the number of its registered users has reached 1.5 billion in total. By the time of June 6, 2021, Baidu Tieba has over 23 million communities. Baidu Tieba uses forums as a place for users to communicate and interact. The slogan of Baidu Tieba is "Born for your interest" (Chinese: 为兴趣而生). The millions of bars in Baidu Tieba, mostly created by fans, cover a variety of topics, including celebrities, films, comics, and books. More than one billion posts have been published in these forums. According to the statistics of Alexa Internet, traffic to Baidu Tieba makes up more than 10% of the total traffic to Baidu properties.[1]
Contents
History
On November 25, 2003, Baidu Tieba began its internal testing. It was released to the public on December 3, 2003.
Baidu Tieba is a completely user-driven network service. The idea of the "paste bar" came from Yu Jun, Baidu's Chief Product Designer. Almost at the same time, Baidu Tieba was combined with the Baidu search engine, to build an online communication platform, letting people communicate with those who share similar interests.
On February 25, 2005, "Barzhu Bar" became an official platform of Baidu Tieba. It was used for communication between the owners from different bars.
On April 15, 2009, Tieba Cloud was integrated into Baidu Tieba.
In 2012, Baidu Tieba updated its interface, switching from a simple reply-by-sequence user interface, into a more complicated reply-in-same-floor one. Along with the new user interface, new functionalities including rankings, more expressive pictures, and allowing administrators to change the background images of Tieba, were also implemented.
On May 13, 2019, topics posted in Baidu Tieba before January 1, 2017, were all hidden. A Baidu official said that the topics are hidden temporarily due to “system maintenance”. The maintenance duration lasted for about 1 month.
Baidu Tieba has become a popular comprehensive forum in China, with a large number of users actively posting, replying to each other, and interacting with each other.[2]
For those who were not active in Chinese online forums before 2016, it might be hard to imagine what Baidu Tieba had achieved – but the data can help you draw a clearer picture:
In mid-2015, Baidu Tieba had already reached 1 billion registered users. What's more, the number of MAU (Monthly Active User) hit 300 million, surpassing Sina Weibo with its 212 million MAU. With strong social features, people were expecting it to become a blend of Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.
Yet, More sophisticated communities like Douban and Zhihu began to thrive. Compared to Baidu Tieba, these new competitors were more successful in delivering high-quality content and facilitating discussion. Those users who created the legend of Baidu Tieba began to move to other platforms.
Meanwhile, Baidu Tieba has become more commercialized with some Tiebas being sold and spam advertisements appearing all over the place. The result for Baidu Tieba, as people generally commented, is a great loss of active users. Its current user base is mainly comprised of netizens of a very young age or a relatively low education level.
More seriously, as competitors steal away their active users and top contributors, the content on Baidu Tieba has begun to deteriorate as well.
Some also blame Baidu Tieba’s downfall on its inability to transfer users to its mobile platform. Among 300 million of its claimed MAU, their mobile users account for only 16.7%(50 million users), in sharp contrast to Weibo’s where 97% of its users access the platform through mobile devices. [3]
Special Features
Content-oriented and interactive
The types of posts shared on Baidu Tieba vary a lot, and there is no certain fixed format that you need to follow. Your posts can be used for discussing a topic of interest or hosting a Q&A session, or maybe even publishing your diary or short stories… the list goes on. But the key feature embedded in all hot posts is its interactiveness – everything is “live“! And because of this, a successful post on Baidu Tieba can never be created once simply left alone. You need to interact with readers to keep your posts hot and on top!
Another good thing about Baidu Tieba is that it is content-oriented rather than user-oriented. This means that you don’t need to be a KOL to be influential on Baidu Tieba, what matters is if your post is interesting enough to trigger discussion.
The vertical structure within Baidu Tieba
As I mentioned previously, Baidu Tieba is a platform consisting of countless specific Tiebas as individual communities. Although they are all under Baidu Tieba and have a largely identical web page layout, each Tieba is rather self-governed, with their own Tieba Host as the main coordinator.
Therefore, you could say that each Tieba, having little to no interaction with one another, is a highly independent website on its own.
6 Baidu Tieba Jargons you should know
Given that Baidu Tieba is a highly localized Chinese community with tons of special features, it is completely natural for Baidu Tieba beginners to get confused at first. To get a head start, it would help if you can get familiar with some of the most common Baidu Tieba jargon first –
Experience Point (经验): The experience point system is a measurement to determine your seniority in a certain Tieba. Ways for you to boost your experience points include:
1) Logging in to the Tieba for consecutive days 2) Initiating a post 3) Replying to a post 4) Organizing a poll 5) Participating in a poll 6) Receiving replies from others.
Just like your knowledge and experience gained in one area of expertise cannot be transferred to another one, your time and effort spent on one Tieba, measured as an experience point, is not shared with any other Tiebas.
Level (贴吧等级):
When your experience points in one Tieba accumulate you will eventually be able to “level up” to the next level of seniority. As illustrated in the graph below, each level-up is accompanied by a special privilege reward, such as exemption from entering verification codes, authorization to insert multimedia and voice memos in your post, etc.
Another cute feature I like about this level system is a “status badge” with your level and title shown on it. Each Tieba member has their title corresponding to their seniority, all of which are named by the Tieba Host and unique to each Tieba.
Tieba Host (吧主):
Nominated by Baidu Tieba webmasters based entirely on a candidates’ contribution and commitment, the Tieba host has the highest level of authority over the Tieba he is in charge of. You can understand this role as the owner and head administrator of a Tieba.
The Tieba host’s responsibility spans from coordinating and regulating activities and posts, to attracting new members and establishing relationships with other Tiebas if needed. Add to digest(加精):
To encourage high-quality content posting, posts that are particularly informative and influential will be added to the digest. The impact of these acknowledged posts can last for years without being submerged by flooding new posts given that users can choose to only view posts under the digest.
Tieba Rules(吧规): As we now understand, each Tieba is similar to a small kingdom overseen by the Tieba host, who keeps all posts within a Tieba under his/her surveillance. Therefore, Tieba host needs to establish and announce rules and standards for all community members to obey, and these are called Tieba rules (吧规).
Tieba rules establish criteria for banning posts, blocking accounts, and featuring posts on the Tieba digest. Remember to read them through before you start posting in the Tieba to avoid getting into trouble.
Friend list (友情贴吧):
Although each Tieba operates as an independent community, they can add other Tiebas they have established “diplomatic relationships” with to their friend list. Members from these “friended Tiebas” are welcomed to post in your territory and interact with your group of people.
For instance, Peking University’s Tieba is actually on the friend list of Tsinghua University’s Tieba. (As you might know, these schools have a strong “frenemy” relationship as they compete for the title of the best college in China.) [4]
Popular Categories
Being an independent community means that every Tieba has its content focus and function to serve Tiebas serve can vary quite a lot, even in the same category.
To better illustrate, let me show you some Tieba categories that I am personally familiar with –
Celebrity Tiebas – Fan Clubs & Gossip
Tiebas about celebrities can be categorized into two types in general – the die-hard fan clubs and the loud group full of gossip.
In the early 2000s, there was no better place on the Internet than Baidu Tieba for fans to find people of similar mindsets and set up camp. Back then, popular stars would even come to Baidu Tieba to interact with their fans.
Naturally, celebrity Tiebas became a breeding ground for official fan clubs. These types of Tiebas are almost exclusively filled with positive information about the celebrity concerned. Talking trash about them will get often get you banned pretty quickly.
Next, welcome to the gossiping world – different from fan Tiebas that only focus on the positive aspects of celebrities, another type of celebrity Tieba is for people interested more in mud-slinging, drama, or trending news.
Unlike the fan club Tiebas, the topics and sentiments in these vary greatly. As long as you aren’t overtly hostile attack, people in these Tiebas can accept sarcasm or criticism. And that is what makes the discussion here much more lively and fun to read.
TV Programs and Films – A resource-sharing hub
Since the mid-2000, the Chinese talent show boom helped contribute to the success of Baidu Tieba, owing to the large user base it reaches and the real-time interaction it facilitates.
In August 2005, the heated discussion on the famous talent shows Super Girl made Baidu Tieba the No.1 ranked Chinese website by page view, surpassing the record set by Sina.
Though the TV show craze has gradually faded away, a few featured Tiebas still have more than 1 million subscribers sustaining ongoing daily discussion.
Another type of Tieba under this category serves a more important (and probably unique to Chinese netizens) feature other than simply serving as a place for discussion.
Right now, with the popularity of western culture, it is very common to find popular foreign TV series loved by millions of Chinese citizens. However, due to strict content regulation and copyright issues, foreign shows are seldom allowed to broadcast on official video-streaming platforms.
And that is how Baidu Tieba, with user accounts connected to Baidu Cloud (Baidu’s Google Drive), came in to provide a free space for netizens to share videos of these TV series via Baidu Cloud with other fans.
Interest Groups – For gaming pros and book lovers
Like the official description of Baidu Tieba says, “Baidu Tieba is an interactive platform where like-minded people gather under their topics of interests.”, another category on Baidu Tieba that cannot be neglected is the interest groups.
If you ask me what is the most popular interest group among all those ranging from sports to anime, my answer would be the gaming Tieba.
With over 10 million e-sport enthusiasts gathering in one Tieba, gaming Tiebas like WOW (World of Warcraft) are created for users to share their strategies, discuss funny gaming experiences, or even “live-stream” matches and events.
To further incentivize and involve users in the discussion, their Tieba administrators would organize themed discussions and even give rewards like game cards or souvenirs to the best replies.
The other Tieba interest group worth mentioning is for the short story lovers.
Yes. Even now, Tiebas for bookworms is still incredibly popular. They are not all about discussing famous online novels. On the contrary, the most popular Tieba posts you will see here are all completely original, self-written short stories by ordinary netizens.
Interestingly, these short stories, even the long pieces, are all published as impromptu short series for the authors to interact with readers under each post. In this way, the writers can better gauge their readers’ interest and receive feedback to better improve their writing.
As mentioned previously, it is the interesting content in the Baidu Tieba posts, not the fame of the author, that sells – believe it or not, one of the national level science fiction prize winners in 2015 was an online short story first published in Baidu Tieba!
Socializing on Baidu Tieba – School Tieba and Beauty Tieba
One type of Tieba was created not for a shared interest, but more for a social purpose.
For instance, Tiebas named after schools, in Tieba’s best years, was created for social purposes. These Tiebas helped to connect alumni and students, provide a place for discussing recent events happening in school, or even asking for someone’s contact! All of this made school Tieba’s an important resource for students.
But now, with the emergence of other social media, we can reach anyone we want to know with ease. Hence, these Tiebas, are now filled with test-taking techniques and everyday life sharing at schools instead. They’ve evolved into a platform that is more suited for marketing, as students will often check a school’s Tieba to determine if it’s a good fit for them.
But other Tiebas are also still used for social purposes as well. The Beauty Tieba, calling itself “the prettiest Tieba in China”, is overrun with young girls posting their carefully-beautified selfies.
One of their signature activities, “The Star of the Week” is a weekly selfie beauty pageant. To compete, contestants are required to attach their selfies with basic self-introductions. Though not as active as it used to be, with 14 million members and over 180 million posts, The Beauty Tieba was indeed an incredibly popular social channel. [5]
Functions
Every bar can have up to three masters, thirty vice-masters, and ten video-masters to manage uploaded videos. Users can post, at most, ten pictures and one video quoted from certain broadcast websites. Users cannot edit any published posts. However, users can delete their own published posts and comments from other users on their posts. Beyond regular text posts, Baidu Tieba allows for the use of polls. Every bar has its own 2GB space for members to upload videos. If a bar is ranked within the top 500 of the official rankings, it has its album.
Before 2010, Baidu Tieba allowed anonymous posting, displaying only the IP address of the poster. Since then, users are required to have a registered account to post on bars. It is illegal in China to publish rumors that "threaten the social order", a crime punishable by up to 7 years in jail. The onus is on service providers to police and remove such content. Baidu Tieba is no exception and warns users against the dangers of spreading false information, suggesting it is done for notoriety as well as commercial and political gain. [6]
International Development
Baidu Postbar is the international version of Baidu Tieba.
To expand its commercial domain, Baidu Tieba has been introduced to several countries: Brazil, Thailand, Vietnam, and Japan.
In late 2011, the Japanese version of Baidu Tieba was shut down.
Since May 2015, all logins are disabled on the Vietnamese version of Baidu Tieba. [7]
Ethical Issues
Commercialization of Tieba
Baidu sold the hemophilia online community to unqualified hospitals. This community was founded by a user with the nickname "Mayicai". "Mayicai" said about 5,000 netizens use this online community to discuss and share effective treatments for hemophilia on Tieba.[8] The new owner of this community with the nickname “hemophilia expert” posted that he had formed a consulting team with "a number of experts related to hemophilia to accurately answer the questions of patients". He explained his previous behavior of deleting posts of other people and claimed that he was entrusted by Baidu company to manage the community. Most of the medical staff in the consultant team of "hemophilia experts" come from a medical institution in Xi'an. One of them is “Professor” Shanxi Liu, the president of the hemophilia Research Institute of Shaanxi Medical University, who was reported by hemophilia bar netizens many times in April 2014. “Professor” Liu was later proved to be a liar.[9]
Tieba is Baidu's product, the real economy market does not have the law to stipulate that Baidu cannot sell its own products. However, the volume of the Tieba is large with hundreds of millions of users. When such a large product appears, it will produce uneconomic behavior. It is called internal diseconomy in economics. Internal uneconomic refers to the asymmetry of information caused by the strength of one party during the transaction. The cost outside the contract caused is borne by the party without information, which is not in line with the principle of equality of market economy. During the commercialization of Tieba, Baidu is the seller, because it controls the management right of the Tieba, and the users of Tieba do not have this right. This difference forms information asymmetry, such as the actual controller of the post-bar (Baidu knows who is the controller, while the users do not). This information asymmetry makes the users of this community bear additional costs, such as medical risks.
On July 7, 2016, Baidu officially confirmed that it will no longer sell forum moderation rights for its online discussion platform, Tieba, in response to this whole event.[10]
Paid Posts Deletion
Baidu has come under fire, after a letter revealing that the company's employees were being paid to delete Internet posts, was published online recently.
The news, which revealed that a number of the employees had been arrested in connection with the claims, has attracted the attention of Internet users across the country.
"Four members of staff were accused of involvement in the deletion of posts for money. Three of whom were suspected of accepting bribes." Yang Chuntian, director of Baidu's Professional Ethic Construction Department, confirmed that there had been a letter revealing how a number of Baidu staff had been detained following suspected paid post deletion.
"One of them was an administrator at Baidu Tieba, which is an online community bound tightly with Baidu Internet search services. This employee had an administrator account. When he took money, he authorized an outsider to delete posts. Numerous posts were deleted," Yang Chuntian explained the details of one of the cases.
"The employee confessed to accepting 67,400 yuan( more than $10,000) in bribes. We know the actual figure involved in the profit chain could be a lot higher, much more than that," Yang said.
Baidu Professional Ethic Construction Department deals with issues relating to professional ethics and is responsible for investigating and handling rule violations. The letter circulating on the Internet was penned by a Briefing of Professional Ethics Construction issued by this department.
When searching on the Internet, tens of thousands of companies claim they can delete online posts for a number of websites such as Sina, 163, ifeng; popular Internet communities such as mop, tieba, and microblogs such as Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, charging between 600 and 5,000 yuan.
An employee of the website called "Internet crisis PR" said many of these Internet so-called PR companies had connections with administrators and editors of a number of websites, which enabled them to be able to delete posts via simple interest exchange.
"The deletion of posts can only be achieved via illegal techniques, just like hackers attack servers. The only other alternative is that they have insiders working at the website who are able to delete posts," said Gao Zelong, assistant to the Secretary-General of iTrust League in the Internet Society of China.
Besides employees in Internet companies, moderators of major BBS or Tieba are also significant in post deletion.
Le-Shuai-Bu-Shuai has been the moderator for a column called "Chinese Women's Volleyball Team" in a BBS for the past six years. But he is not the only person working for this site. There are also two other moderators and 10 deputy moderators who have the power to delete posts.
"Although moderators have a lot of power, some websites, such as Baidu, fail to play an active role in the supervision of its site," said Le-Shuai-Bu-Shuai. "If deputy moderators delete a post illegally, moderators will be able to know this. However, if the moderators delete a post themselves, no one would ever find out. It's the moderators who are responsible for the successful deletion of posts."
Baidu, on the other hand, doesn't have any detailed regulations on post deletion, therefore moderators are required to make their judgments on what should be deleted.
Le-Shuai-Bu-Shuai said that the procedure for deleting posts is straightforward, and any Tieba user can inform Baidu of an inappropriate post. They simply log in to the Tieba report center, fill in the provided report forms and submit the report. Once the rule violation of a certain post is confirmed, this post will be deleted.
The profit chain of paid post deletion has exposed the existence and prevalence of Internet corruption.
"Externally, we can use laws and regulations to prosecute these misconducts committed by illegal Internet PR companies," said Zhao Zhanling, counselor of Credit Appraisal Center in the Internet Society of China. "Internally," Internet companies should optimize the management of their companies. The power employees have should be restricted and supervised. Also, companies should guide their staff through establishing company values and ethics."[11]
See Also
External Links
References
- ↑ Baidu Tieba - Wiki
- ↑ History of Baidu Tieba - Wiki
- ↑ The past glory of Baidu Tieba and its recent downfall, - What is Baidu Tieba
- ↑ The special Baidu Tieba features that make it unique, - What is Baidu Tieba
- ↑ A glimpse of popular Baidu Tieba categories and their different functions, - Dragon Social
- ↑ Functions of Baidu Tieba - Wiki
- ↑ International Development of Baidu Tieba - Wiki
- ↑ Baidu to halt commercialization of Tieba health forums - ChinaDaily
- ↑ Baidu Gives Up on Commercializing Tieba Forums. - Sixth Tone
- ↑ Agent talks at an impasse as Baidu moves to end Tieba commercialization as part of its search overhaul. -Global Times
- ↑ 'Paid posts deletion' reveals Internet corruption - ChinaDaily
