What then do we need in the way of a social networking site that is truly beneficial in a broad and profound way to humanity? We should design our service to incorporate the successful aspects of existing systems and introduce radical new improvements that address at least some of the concerns and failings. Of special importance is the need to respect cultures of the world and recognise their distinctiveness. So let us proceed to examine some popular systems beyond those that are so familiar in the West.

It may be that the world is shrinking, but cultural variation should not be underestimated. To illustrate this, consider a BBC News report into comedy in Qatar1. It’s written by Kevin Connolly, a British impressionist, and he is obviously surprised at what he encounters in the way of respect towards public figures: in Qatar they are not the butt of jokes. Further, there is an expectation implicit in his later comments that until Qataris change their attitude, their comedy won’t gain widespread acceptance. Assumptions like these permeate so much of especially Western society, from which the largest SNS have been developed. We should therefore be mindful of our tendency to assume, particularly in terms of the liberties we may be taking in regard of others.

Such observations give us clues as to why online software-based services, which have for several years achieved global reach, have limited cultural adaptation beyond the technical task of menu ‘internationalisation’ (i18n). It is recognised that it takes a lot of resources and coordination to produce a high quality service that fulfils local requirements. An example is Google’s translation service, which can be embedded on your own Web site (called a ‘web element’). Its selection omits many languages spoken by hundreds of millions; even though machine translation is a specific task that has been studied for decades and is advancing rapidly with artificial intelligence techniques, it remains very difficult to fulfil well because it is so embedded in culture.

Language is essential to communication, so a good translation facility would be a boon to social networking sites. Yet language is just one expression of culture that is manifest in SNS, so designing a culturally sensitive SNS is difficult. Given the rush to build systems, it is not surprising that cultural variations are not properly catered for by any single SNS today and that the goals have collapsed to becoming utilitarian – hence “make it easy”, i.e. the design has moved in the opposite direction, to oversimplification and cultural insensitivity. If we don’t offer an alternative to such an approach it’s likely we shall end up with the lowest common denominator, but is such a trend inevitable? We need to provide some indications that actually this is not necessarily what will happen.

One can start to look for alternatives by surveying the plethora of different online networks around the world. It can be readily shown that very significant variations exist in adoption levels and the nature of usage of the larger SNS across different countries. This is particularly apparent in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China), in some cases local services are preferred; for instance in China, QZone is one of the most popular SNS among youngsters with an estimated 480 million users in 20112 and over 540 million Monthly Active User (MAU) in 2018 Q2; whilst Wechat has grown to over a billion MAU.  There are still others, such as Renren, an approximate service to Facebook, which grew to over 250 million active users; during this period access to Facebook.com has been blocked from China for several years, due to censorship3. In Russia, the most popular system is VK (formerly VKontakte)4. However, the trend to global monopoly is evident in Brazil and India, where in terms of numbers, Orkut, which was the most popular, has been overhauled by Facebook5.

The Japanese likewise developed quite distinctive SNS with Gree and Mixi emerging to the fore in preference to Western systems6. The primary reason for this concerns identity – the Japanese prefer anonymity, at least in the services as provided7and both Gree and Mixi plus a third popular service, Mobage Town, all provide this8. Delving further into the background of this Japanese trio, one finds all three have social gaming elements, i.e. games played with others across computer networks. Additional functionality is woven in: for instance, Mixi has a mini Diary, blog-like functionality, but oriented to short posts “in between twitter and blog” which can help build social bonds between writer of diary and friends9.

The companies have been quick to target mobile networks, even though – as in the case of Gree – they may have started on a PC platform. The financial model is based on micro transactions that cleverly tap consumerist tendencies, for example shopping habits10. The social gaming has also provided another mode of communication, albeit somewhat tribal. The furtive use of SNS reflects the fact that mobile phones (keitei denwa) are widely banned in organisations. It seems that more positive roles for SNS haven’t yet been established. More significantly, this may be a reflection of the stratification and hierarchies in many societies. Even in systems such as Facebook that are architecturally flat there are distinct contours of usage reflecting these particular cultural paradigms and societal structures. For example, in purely numerical terms, Japan has fewer contacts in ‘friendship networks’11,12.

Another aspect that tends to be underplayed in Western societies because of the emphasis on individuals is the role of guiding institutions. Turning to South Asia, Indians have a stronger awareness of an ancient culture and greater sensitivity with regards to actions. The government wishes to develop guidelines rather than just let Web sites be completely de-regulated. In a BBC report, the Communications Minister Kapil Sibal said:

“the government did not believe in interfering in the freedom of the press, but “we have to take care of the sensibilities of our people, we have to protect their sensibilities. Our cultural ethos is very important to us … My aim is that insulting material never gets uploaded. We will evolve guidelines and mechanisms to deal with the issue. They will have to give us the data, where these images are being uploaded and who is doing it.“13

India has come up with many SNS of its own including some general-purpose sites such as MyIndoSpace (http://www.myindospace.com/)14 and Verdurez, an SNS for people aged 55 and over, but they haven’t caught on.  The more successful ones have been more focused, such as those concerned with matrimony15.  Even so, Facebook’s powerful marketing drive and commercial expertise has prevailed in many countries.

Cultural variations maybe mainly business-driven (including China and India), with large multi-nationals controlling the few main initiatives16. Even within Europe, there’s cultural variation in the usage of Facebook17.

However, more obvious differences can arise in systems where members identify themselves in other ways. Religious identity is especially important for Muslims, where Facebook has been widely regarded as unsatisfactory in that it exposes too much that is contrary to Islamic values. This has led to initiatives such as My Muslim Friends Book (formerly Milat Facebook) and Salamworld, as featured on the BBC. In its publicity, the latter aimed to provide a “halal” environment free from harmful influences, and thus suitable for families and young children – but for all the hype, it didn’t last.

However, targeting services in such a specific way may cloister users thereby limiting the potential to “overcome cultural barriers” to the Islamic context. This may beat the expense of potential dialogue with non-Muslims unless there are bridges to other services and could lead to Muslims being portrayed as “separatists”18. In their coverage of such emerging developments, Western secular media are also likely to highlight issues around moderation, especially where levels of censorship of content are deemed relatively high19.

In a world where social data and statistics tumble forth, the evidence gathered so far is remarkably patchy, which should raise concerns when we consider the growing ruptures in the social fabric. Slowly, concerns have been raised, but they don’t seem to be prominent enough to have made much difference to what’s on offer. At a basic level surveys into SNS usage should paying particular attention to the demographics and the nature of relationships supported. In addition to such analysis of what’s been happening culturally in practice, there is also considerable scope for developing more conceptual models that make explicit cultural aspects. There has been some exploratory work that treats cultural considerations in terms of network size and scale – four levels from individual to cross-cultural20, but the research in this area seems sparse.

In response we draw on the Buddha’s teachings that articulate increasingly meaningful levels of association. This kind of authentication naturally makes manifest cultural traits and its simplicity avoids having to label and be prescriptive.

Notes 

1 Kevin Connolly, Stand-up comedy Qatari-style, BBC News, 8 February 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16913107

2 Using data from Alexa.com, RiaNovosti determined that QZone had 480 million users in February 2011.
http://en.rian.ru/infographics/20110228/162792394.html

3 Puneet Pal Singh, Facebook: Can Mark Zuckerberg crack the Chinese market? BBC News Business. 17 May 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18082900

4 VK http://vk.com/ is widely described as a clone of Facebook, so what has made it more attractive than Facebook itself?

5 comScore Press release, São Paulo, Brazil, March 19, 2012 Brazil’s Social Networking Activity Accelerates in the Past Year Fueled by Facebook Growth http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2012/3/Brazil_s_Social_Networking_Activity_Accelerates_in_the_Past_Year

6 Robert Michael Poole. Social networking site Gree becomes Japan’s no.1, CNN International, http://travel.cnn.com/tokyo/life/social-networking-site-gree-becomes-japans-no1-280664/

7 Adam Acar. The Problem with Facebook in Japan. Penn Olsen 20 June 2011. http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/06/20/problem-with-facebook-in-japan/

8 Robert Michael Poole. 75 percent of Japanese still haven’t heard of Facebook , CNN International, 19 January 2011. http://travel.cnn.com/tokyo/life/75-percent-japanese-still-havent-heard-facebook-706831/

9 Functions listed at: http://mixi.co.jp/en/about/

10 Jonny Li And Hideo Yamazaki. An Introduction to Gree ( 2 parts)（グリーソーシャルネットワーキングサービス）
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZZhcGo_pOU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLjZIqkDhd4&NR=1
An Introduction to Mixi (2 parts): part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLn-yHPkGVw

11 BBC News. Japanese have fewest digital friends on social networks, BBC News: Technology, 10 October 2010 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11501625

12 Robert Michael Poole. Somebody please poke me! CNN International. 13 October, 2010 http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/life/somebody-please-poke-me-016344

13 India vows crackdown on offensive internet content, BBC News 6 December 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-16044554
The Minister re-iterated this a couple of months later, but stressed that there would not be censorship:
BBC News 14 February 2012 India minister Sibal says no censorship of social media
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-17024957

14 A listing was provided by OneIndia at: http://explore.oneindia.in/internet/social/networking/
[host no longer available]

15 Jiban K. Pal, Social networks enabling matrimonial information services in India, International Journal of Library and Information Science Vol. 2(4), pp. 54-64, May 2010

16 See, for instance, research by Grant Blank (mentioned on BBC News: Business: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11525627 ).

17 Asimina Vasaloua, Adam N. Joinson and Delphine Courvoisier Cultural differences, experience with social networks and the nature of “true commitment” in Facebook International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Volume 68, Issue 10, October 2010, Pages 719–728.

18 As remarked by the head of Islamic research at the University of Auckland, Zain Ali in Lincoln Tan. Muslim rival to Facebook calls for NZ members. New Zealand Herald, 21 March 2012
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10793459

19 Jennifer Pak, BBC News Business. 8 May 2012 ‘Islamic Facebook’ to offer alternative social network http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17986367

20 The idea of cross-cultural social capital is introduced in Yifan Jiang, Oscar de Bruijn and Antonella De Angeli. A Four-Level Approach to the Study of Cross-cultural Social Networking. Position Paper, http://sites.google.com/site/crosscultureworkshopinteract09/position-papers-1