BEIJING/NEW YORK, 21 March 2003 — Moments after the first missiles hit Iraq, Web surfers around the world logged on to get the latest news and unleash their own barrage of messages.
Online news portals in the United States and China — which have nearly a quarter of a billion Web users between them — reported three times as much traffic as usual, showing the power of the Net as a major source of information and ringing up profits for Web portals.
“Our page views went through the roof,” said Sohu.com spokeswoman Caroline Straathof.
Some 20,000 people had registered for the Chinese portal’s SMS-based news service in the first few hours of the war, to receive urgent news on their mobile phones, she said.
People across the world also tapped away on their mobile phones, sending each other phone text messages of fear, outrage and black humor.
“Have you heard that when the United States takes over Iraq it will divide the country into three zones — premium, regular and unleaded,” said one message circulating in Manila — a hotbed of text messaging.
Chat rooms at three of China’s portals were humming with activity, with many users bashing the United States.
“Let’s beat down US imperialism! Bush is the ringleader of the invader! Bush is Hitler of the 21st century!” said one Web user named “xuchangc” on NetEase.com.
The Internet has emerged as a key source for news, communication and comfort during major events, especially after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The United States and China are the world’s biggest Web countries, with about 170 million US and 59 million Chinese Internet users in 2002.
Yahoo Inc’s news site saw about three times more traffic than it would in a typical hour directly after President Bush told Americans in a speech that the US had launched a war on Iraq, according to spokeswoman Joanna Stevens.
