Wenxuecity
 | |
| Company type | Media |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Fremont, California |
| Website | http://www.wenxuecity.com |
Wenxuecity.com[1] (Chinese: 文学城; Pinyin: Wénxuéchéng), literally "Literature City," is a Chinese-language tabloid website targeting Chinese expatriates and people who work and/or study abroad, especially those reside in U.S.A. and Canada for both news service and entertainment purpose. Wenxuecity.com has its own editors reside in different locations,and they act as news reporters to cover selected news and local events.With limited original news, it is a site that also collects lots of news, gossips and editorial articles, both concerning China, North America and the world from other renowned and trusted sources and news agency such as CFP, RFI, VCG, CNTV.
Wenxuecity.com has a broad influence as the largest overseas Chinese tabloid website. It has been mentioned by other media such as the New York Times,[2] VOA,[3][4] China News[5][6] and China Review News.[7]. At least some of its claims of fame seem self-serving. For example, it claims that the web site is mentioned by the BBC,[8]. However, a quick check shows that Wenxuecity was only mentioned in a user comment in the above reference.
Censorship
Wenxuecity.com has heavy censorship in its forums. The censorship appears to be based on an unsophisticated auto keyword filter, as well as human filtering under unclear and random guidelines. For example, politically sensitive words such as FLG (Falun Gong) would be filtered, as well as acronyms that might have slang meanings in Chinese (e.g., a term "SB 180" referring to "Senate Bill 180" will be filtered out because the slang "SB" can mean “a stupid person” in Chinese). External links are filtered out as well. These links include both commercial competitors, e.g., www.mitbbs.com (MIT BBS), and links that are relevant to truthfulness (or falsehood) of stories published. The site has received numerous complaints for shutting down users' accounts for no obvious reasons.
Rankings
According to 2013 data, wenxuecity.com is ranked 2,531 globally and 810 in the U.S. on search engine traffic volume. Every 30 days, the number of average pageviews is over 2 billion, and that of unique visitors is close to 3 million. Within the 3 million unique visitors, over 90% are returning visitors. And about 60% of the total traffic comes from the US, while about 20% are from Canada. On average, they view about 9 pages for each visit and stay on the site for 14 minutes.[9]
References
- ^ On its About Us section, this website calls itself as "Wenxuecity.com", and "A ChinaGate Web Group". "ChinaGate" appears on its logo, but it is not the official English name of this website.
- ^ https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/world/asia/11iht-expats.4.15181496.html
- ^ "火墙内外:"衣"官算"俊"太聪明 反误了"卿卿"功名".
- ^ "火墙内外: 薄熙来案开庭在即 世纪审判引发热议".
- ^ chinanews. "新媒体"给力"华文传媒论坛 ——中新网".
- ^ chinanews. "文学城网站CEO林文：打造海外华人的精神家园——中新网".
- ^ "中評搜索".
- ^ "透视：中国的互联网自由". 29 August 2006 – via bbc.co.uk.
- ^ wenxuecity.com/aboutus