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China’s Latest Viral App Sparks Discussion On Data-Collecting Methods

China’s latest viral sensation, the ‘Personality Label’ app, has taken Chinese social media sites by storm. But after reportedly violating WeChat community guidelines, skeptical netizens have triggered a discussion on the rules surrounding popular apps.

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China’s latest viral sensation, the ‘Personality Label’ app, has taken Chinese social media sites by storm. But after reportedly violating WeChat community guidelines, skeptical netizens have triggered a discussion on the rules surrounding popular apps.

China’s social media sites are never short of trends that can dominate user’s newsfeeds for weeks at a time. However, the latest fad to explode onto the apps of Chinese social media platforms such as Sina Weibo and WeChat seems to have been encountering some issues during its brief time in the spotlight, leading to an online debate on viral apps and the information they collect.

This week, an app by the name of Plato Personality Label (柏拉图性格标签) has been widely circulated among Chinese netizens. The app promises to ‘measure’ your personality with a short test before producing an aesthetically pleasing collage detailing your character. Users are presented with a series of phrases such as “Values their principles!” (“重视原则!”) or “Sometimes overly ambitious” (“有时会好高骛远”).

app2

The premise is simple enough, and has spread quickly due to the QR-scanning function available on many Chinese social media apps.

After scanning the QR code, users are directed to an official WeChat account under the name of ‘Hangzhou City West’ (杭州大城西).  Once users enter the official account, it invites you to take the personality test under the slogan “Create your own label, endorse yourself!” (“生成你的性格标签,为自己代盐!”). The app then takes your name (4 characters maximum), and birth date, before ‘calculating’ your personality.

The resulting pictures were soon littered around WeChat and Weibo, particularly after popular online celebrity Papi Jiang featured the app on her official Weibo account (@搭配酱). Her post featured numerous screenshots of various personality labels under celebrities’ names, saying: “When I woke up this morning, my whole newsfeed was covered in people’s personality labels.”

Many netizens were spurred into trying the app after seeing it spread through social media. Among many similar posts, user @Baby柒小柒 commented: “So many people on my newsfeed playing ‘Personality Label’, so I had to try it myself!”

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Others were anxious to point out flaws in the personality test after putting celebrity names in. One Weibo user (@裂缝中的阳光25) responded to Papi Jiang’s post: “The test result that I got for Zhang Yixing wasn’t the same, did you not put in the star sign? It seems like you got it wrong.”

Some of the even higher-rated comments under a news report by Sina Tech contained cautions by those who were more sceptical of the app’s intentions: “Viral apps are really annoying, and I have a small suspicion that they’re stealing people’s personal information,” one netizen said (@一只都放假).

User @UTOUU-仙参 agreed, writing: “Feel sick looking at this kind of stuff, who knows what information they collect and what they do with it behind the scenes?”

Amongst the mixed reviews, the app’s rapid rise to popularity has not entirely been smooth sailing. It was only shortly after the app was gaining steam that users began to be directed away from the page and presented with a warning that the site had been removed.

Sina Tech reported that despite the app soaring through the download charts from the 150th to the 10th place, it was later removed for violating WeChat community guidelines, sparking a debate on how WeChat responds to popular apps using its platform, as well as a discussion on whether they enforce their guidelines selectively.

Despite this hiccup, the app went online again at roughly 11:30pm on Sunday night, July 17th.

It is not yet known why WeChat decided to reverse their decision of removal – although parts of the app may have been modified to comply with existing guidelines.

As in the Weibo comments above, some users reported having to previously enter their star sign amongst other information, whereas the app now solely asks for a name and birth date. It seems that for now, this viral app is here to stay, provided it follows the rules. Whether netizens will continue to download it or not might just be a matter of personality.

By Cat Hanson

©2016 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.

Cat Hanson is a U.K. graduate of Chinese Studies now teaching and living in China. She swapped Beijing for Anhui, and runs her own blog on China life: Putong Press.

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China Digital

Meet Ren Xiaorong, People’s Daily AI Virtual News Anchor

Although their functions are still limited, AI news anchors such as Ren Xiaorong are a sign of the future.

Manya Koetse

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Ren Xiaorong (任小融) joined the Chinese state media outlet People’s Daily as a virtual presenter/news anchor this week.

Ren Xiaorong is the AI-powered host of an app allowing users to ask questions related to the Two Sessions, the annual plenary sessions of the National People’s Congress and of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference that have been taking place this week.

Through the People’s Daily app, you can ask Ren Xiaorong to tell you more about various topics covered during the Two Sessions, including education, epidemic prevention, housing, employment, environmental protection, and many other issues.

According to the introduction video launched by People’s Daily, Ren is also available to discuss other news topics people would like to know more about.

Ren Xiaorong is interactive to a certain (very limited) extent; users can select the topics they want to learn more about, but the app does not yet allow to ask specific questions.

A related hashtag went viral on Weibo on Sunday (#人民日报AI虚拟主播#), triggering discussions on the use of virtual news presenters.

Ren Xiaorong is not the first People’s Daily virtual news anchor. In 2019, the very first AI-powered presenter was unveiled at the 2019 Big Data Expo (#人民日报首位AI虚拟主播#). Guo Guo (果果), aka Little Guo Guo (小果果), was based on the real-life Chinese reporter Guo Xinyu (果欣禹).

Guo Guo and Guo Xinyu

China’s state media outlets Xinhua, Beijing TV, Hunan TV, and CCTV previously also unveiled their own AI-powered virtual news anchors at a time when China’s virtual idol market started to explode.

During the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, there was also a virtual host and China’s first AI sign language presenter.

Although news media outlets have started experimenting with virtual presenters for some time now, some netizens are still not convinced about the actual purpose of having virtual TV hosts and news anchors, especially when their AI-driven interactive functions are still limited.

Weibo blogging account ‘Media People Online’ (@传媒人在线) writes: “I’ve never really understood this, is there a shortage of broadcasting talent, or are AI anchors better at it? Why would you use a robot to broadcast the news? Are you spending so much money on an AI presenter just to show technological progress?”

But other bloggers (@夏日之阳新闻传播考研) think that virtual anchors could improve the quality and availability of news, since they could broadcast around the clock while saving on manpower, alleviating the pressure on newsrooms.

Whether people approve of virtual news readers or not, most agree Ren Xiaorong, along with her virtual colleagues, is a harbinger of the digitalization of the media at a time when artificial intelligence has already come to play a pivotal role in everyday activities.

Want to see Ren Xiaorong at work? Click this link on mobile.

By Manya Koetse 


 

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China Digital

U.S. Embassy Launches WeChat Stickers Featuring Cartoon Eagle

A Weibo hashtag about the eagle stickers, that feature some phrases previously used by China’s Foreign Ministry, has now been taken offline.

Manya Koetse

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On January 30, the American Embassy in China announced the launch of its very own series of social media gifs, a special ’emoticon collection’ (表情包), featuring a little, somewhat silly cartoon eagle.

The U.S. Embassy launched the eagle series on WeChat and also announced the series on their Weibo account, writing that the eagle made its first public appearance in light of the festivities surrounding the Chinese New Year.

The eagle is called “Xiaomei” or “Little Mei” (鹰小美). The ‘mei’ is part of 美国 Měiguó, Chinese for the ‘United States,’ but měi also means beautiful and pretty.

The American embassy issued a total of 16 different animated stickers, and they’re intended to be used on Tencent’s WeChat, where users can download all kinds of different emoticons or stickers to use in conversations.

WeChat users often use many different animated stickers in conversations to express emotions, make jokes, or increase the festive mood (by sending out celebratory New Year’s or birthday etc gifs). Users can download new and preferred sticker packages through the app’s sticker section.

One sticker shows Xiaomei with a festive decoration with 福 () for blessing and prosperity, wishing everyone a happy start to the Chinese Lunar New Year. There are also stickers showing the texts “happy winter,” “hi,” and “thank you.”

Another sticker in the series that has triggered some online responses is one that shows the eagle with a surprised look, wiping its eyes, with the words “wait and see” written above. The Chinese expression used is 拭目以待 shìmù yǐdài, to eagerly wait for something to happen, literally meaning to wipe one’s eyes and wait.

This same expression was often used by the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian (赵立坚) during press conferences, and he also used it in 2022 when responding to questions related to Nancy Pelosi’s controversial visit to Taiwan and how the Chinese military would respond (e.g. he first used “wait and see” in the context of waiting to see if Pelosi would actually dare to go to Taiwan or not). But Zhao also used “please wait and see” (请大家拭目以待) when foreign reporters asked him how China would respond to the announced U.S. boycott of the Winter Olympics in 2021.

The Little Mei emoji triggered the most responses as some netizens felt it was meant as a sneer to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

One of Little Mei’s quotes is also “remain calm” (保持冷静 bǎochí lěngjìng), which was – perhaps coincidentally – also often used by Zhao in the context of the war in Ukraine and to refer to other international conflicts or tensions (“all parties should remain calm”). The animated sticker also has olive branches growing behind the eagle.

It recently became known that Zhao, who became known as the ‘Wolf Warrior’ diplomat, was removed as the Foreign Ministry spokesperson and was moved to the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs.

Especially in the context of Zhao leaving his post, some wondered why the U.S. Embassy would use phrases related to his press conferences for their new emoticons.

Although some people suggested the WeChat stickers were not launched in China with good intentions, others appreciated the humorous visuals and felt it was funny. Some also joked that America was infiltrating Chinese social media with its cultural export (“文化输出”), and others wondered if they could not also introduce some other stickers with more Chinese Foreign Ministry popular phrases on them.

A hashtag related to the topic made its rounds on Weibo on Tuesday (#美驻华大使馆上线鹰小美表情包#), but the topic suddenly was taken offline on Tuesday evening local time, along with some of the media reports about the remarkable WeChat series.

The WeChat stickers are still available for downloading by scanning the QR code below through WeChat.

By Manya Koetse , with contributions by Miranda Barnes

 

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©2023 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.

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