Fang Xingdong

Fang Xingdong (方兴东)
Fang Xingdong (方兴东)
	Fang Xingdong (方兴东); Free speech crusader and; Chinese web entrepreneur
Born	1969; Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province, China
Nationality	Chinese
Known for	Founder of Blogchina (now Bokee) and Chinalabs, proponent ("Godfather") of blogging in China, coined "Boke" (Bo Ke) as word for blog
Website	Chinalabs.com

Fang Xingdong (Chinese: 方兴东) is a Chinese former internet entrepreneur in the early 2000s and currently works with a university in Zhejiang province, China. He launched the blogchina.com (now bokee.com) in 2002 and received some funding from venture capital firms in 2005. But it quickly became a complete failure in just half an year.[1] He is a proponent of cyber sovereignty and sometimes writes for Global Times, a Chinese 'belligerent state tabloid'.[2]

A controversial figure in China, he has been implicated in several alleged scandals, such as plagiarism in his doctoral thesis when he was in Tsinghua University, massive piracy in one of his failed online encyclopedia business in 2005 and so on. His chinalabs.com, although appears to be a web research consultancy, was accused of launching a cyber defamation campaign against Alibaba in 2017 after signing a contract with JD.com (a competitor of Alibaba), whose CEO faced rape allegation in 2018.[3]

References

"一个先锋的陨落". finance.jrj.com.cn. Retrieved 2019-01-16.
Huang, Zheping; Huang, Zheping. "Inside the Global Times, China's hawkish, belligerent state tabloid". Quartz. Retrieved 2019-01-16.
Corcoran, Kieran. "A Chinese tech billionaire has been accused of plying a student with drink and then forcing himself on her during a trip to the US". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-01-16.

Sources

Fannin, Febecca A. (2007). Silicon Dragon: How China is Winning the Tech Race. McGraw-Hill. p. 101. ISBN 9780071494472.
MacKinnon, Rebecca (9 August 2007). "Flatter world and thicker walls? Blogs, censorship and civic discourse in China". Public Choice. 134 (1–2): 31–46. doi:10.1007/s11127-007-9199-0.
Ni, Jin (2007-05-23). "BBC: China abandons blog identity plan". BBC News. Retrieved 2009-03-19.
Pan, Phillip P. (2006-02-21). "Bloggers Who Pursue Change Confront Fear And Mistrust". Washington Post. pp. A01. Retrieved 2009-03-19.
Zhao, Shijun; Peng Nie; Weifeng Xu (2006). 时尚中国—网动中国英 (Networks in China - English translation). McGraw-Hill. pp. 37–39. ISBN 9787508509310.

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[1] "一个先锋的陨落". finance.jrj.com.cn. Retrieved 2019-01-16.

[2] Huang, Zheping; Huang, Zheping. "Inside the Global Times, China's hawkish, belligerent state tabloid". Quartz. Retrieved 2019-01-16.

[3] Corcoran, Kieran. "A Chinese tech billionaire has been accused of plying a student with drink and then forcing himself on her during a trip to the US". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-01-16.