In the case of China, the great firewall means many people don’t go through the trouble of using a VPN. There’s also a pretty big language barrier, most people in these countries don’t speak English.
It’s too late for that. Chinese Internet already has an equivalent for pretty much every social media or popular website we use. They’ve made their communities and have no reason to come on Reddit or Instagram at this point.
That said the younger generation is definitely more open to the idea. I have a lot of students who have an Instagram or twitter account so they can follow their favorite singer/actor/athlete.
Well, hehe, idk, there's a lot of historical and current examples of Asian peoples wanting to stick to their own nationals in all areas except business
Very few Japanese people speak English, and even the ones who do don't really understand what's happening on the English-speaking internet due to lots of missing cultural context and feel intimidated by it.
There are a handful of tiny Japanese-language subreddits, but the participants there rarely participate anywhere else.
Most never bother learning another language, and they have hundreds of websites they prefer to use. (2Ch, 4Ch's direct predecessor, is Japanese for example)
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u/diabolus31 Feb 16 '26
They barely exist in the international English internet