Posts Tagged ‘Sina Weibo’
June 6th, 2012
The editor of a
Chinese newspaper
has been dismissed after posting comments online deemed critical of the government. Yu Chen, editor of the investigative news desk at Southern Metropolitan Newspaper, was initially suspended and later forced to resign after he accidentally used the newspapers Sina Weibo account to respond a question on whether China’s Ministry of National Defence should serve the Chinese Communist Party. Yu’s post was deleted immediately, along with the message he was responding to. Yu is the first journalist in China to be forced to resign from a newspaper as a result of online comments.
May 28th, 2012
China‘s largest microblogging service has introduced a code of conduct to
restrict the type of messages that can be posted. The new move from Sina Weibo, seen to be the latest attempt to censor social media, comes after local authorities criticised the posting of “unfounded” rumours on the network. Under the
new rules, users start with 80 “points” which can be deducted for breaking the sites code of conduct, and repeat offenders risk having their accounts deleted. The site has also developed a
“community convention” clearly outlining what type of postings are unacceptable on the site.
May 9th, 2012
Chinese micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo
plan to introduce a “user-contract” in an attempt to control sensitive information on the site. The rules, which are set to be introduced later this month, outline do’s and don’ts for the site, including prohibiting posts which “spread rumors, disrupt social order, and destroy societal stability”. The new rules will also introduce a “community committee”, a group of registered users, who will implement the terms of service. Violation of these regulations could result in deletion, preventing reposting or disabling commenting.
March 19th, 2012
A crack in
China’s firewall allowed dissident artist Ai Wei Wei to
use a Twitter-like social media account for a short time on Sunday, before it shortly became inaccessible. The dissident artist was able to use micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo after discovering that his name was no longer blocked. Ai said his account was deleted shortly after midnight on Monday, and was replaced with a message that read: “Error. Invalid Weibo user”. During the short time the artist’s account was active, he attracted over 10,000 followers. New regulations which require Beijing-based microbloggers to declare their real names went into
effect on Friday.
September 23rd, 2011
Video game fans awaiting the release of Diablo 3 in
China fear that the game will be
heavily censored. Amid reports that the game has entered the
beta-testing phase, rumours that it is quite bloody are making Chinese fans nervous that they will face a toned-down version, as they did with World of Warcraft. The Chinese version of World of Warcraft, made by
Blizzard the same company as Diablo, was changed. Gamers took to Weibo with comments such as “#Diablo3# We’re not asking for much, just to play the goddamn original version, as long as it’s not censored it’s fine…”
August 24th, 2011
Bucking a trend of
official anxiety over the explosive growth of microblogs in the country, Beijing’s Communist Party Chief
urged China’s internet companies to put an end to the spread of fake and harmful information when he visited major internet firm Sina this week. Liu Qi praised the company for its achievements with Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like microblogging platform with 200 million registered users, but said internet companies should “step up the application and management of new technology, and absolutely put an end to fake and misleading information.”
