]]>

A few months ago on the Weekly Wrapup we talked about the growing trend of “Social Shopping.” The best way to think of it is as a modern version of the Home Shopping Network where an influencer talks about products live that are available to purchase. This is something I do on Amazon from time to time.

In the video I pointed viewers towards an excellent video from Bloomberg that shows just how big social shopping has become in China. There it’s an industry worth tens of billions of dollars.

One of the creators featured in that video, Austin Li Jiaqi, has been effectively taken off the air by the government after a guest presented him with a cake in the shape of a tank according to Vice News. The government wants to erase memories of this picture from the Tiananmen Square massacre:

The video happened to take place on the 33rd anniversary of the 1989 event. Jiaqi has not yet reappeared after the stream was suddenly shut down.

]]> 609