It’s been in the pipeline for weeks. Ever since China’s version of Twitter, Weibo, was used by account holders to pressure a polluting factory to close down in Dalian and to expose dodgy goings on after a fatal train crash this summer in Wenzhou, the government has been making threatening sounds about the need for more controls over what and who can tweet.
Sina, the owner of China’s most popular micoblogging site Weibo has bowed to the pressure and, according to Chinese media, said it is setting up special rumour-quashing teams to stop the spread of “false information”. Sina chief executive Charles Chao was quoted as saying that as well as Sina stepping up efforts to delete rumours, the government should also make new laws to maintain “a healthy order on microblogs.”
For an example of the kinds of “false information” Chao is referring to, we can take a look at the most recent report of Weibo censorship. Internet activist Huaguoshan Zongshuji said his Weibo posts of pictures of officials wearing luxury brand watches, including Rolex, Omega and Piaget, had been deleted in the past few days. His posts drew many angry comments from other Weibo users about government corruption.
Weibo has over 200 million registered users, and the service has to deal with up to 75m comments and messages every day.
