Life in China 2016: A Picture A Day, September 21 – I think I have mentioned before that much of the “western” social media is blocked in China. This internet censorship in China is referred to as “The Great Firewall of China.” Most Chinese people have no access to Facebook, You Tube, Instagram, Wordpress blogs, many news sites, etc. Most foreigners, and some Chinese, use VPNs (verified personal networks) in order to gain access to the blocked content. In an article from 2015, including Chinese social media statistics, it states “To put Chinese social networking into perspective …. QQ (the #1 platform) has more users than Linkedin, Twitter and Instagram put together!” I use WeChat, the #4 platform to keep in touch with my friends living in China. It’s messaging, voice calls, video calls, and so much more! It has a newsfeed similar to FB, except on friends posts, you can only see comments/likes from those who are also your friends. We also have used it to send our location to others, add money to our phones, buy movie tickets, order taxis and pay them, pay for purchases at a store, and it enables you to do much more! I love the large amount of free stickers :-) A large amount of the content I receive is in Chinese, but it has a built in translator, so ‘usually’ works well for me to be able to read, although at times, it makes absolutely no sense at all! It enables me to chat with a Chinese person who doesn’t know English, we both send messages in our native language and then translate them. It’s a little strange standing next to someone and quietly communicating on your phone, but, it works! I’ve even communicated with the pharmacist in this way! Since I like to take pictures with my regular camera, not my phone, I recently learned that I can log in to Wechat on the web and easily transfer my pictures to post them on Wechat. I know I have SOOO MUCH more to learn about it, but little by little is good, then I can remember! Photos are just a bunch of screen shots from my phone! Here’s the link to the social media article I quoted: http://makeawebsitehub.com/chinese-social-media-statistics/