Discussions of the technology and politics of China’s ‘great firewall’ in the West often lack a crucial part of the puzzle - the opinions of Chinese web users. At least according to this blogger trying to connect English and Chinese-speaking users.

He directs people to engage with Chinese users by signing up to Fanfou, a twitter like microblogging service based in China. He also translates messages from Chinese users using the service to report on the recent events in Tibet.

Encouraging connections between Chinese and English-speaking web users is important - because the gap between them is set to divide the web. English may be the web’s lingua franca for now, but Chinese is in second place and growing. China is already very close to being the world’s largest online market. Before long, it seems, Chinese and China will dominate the web.

Tom Simonite, online technology reporter

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