“Politically Harmful”: Censorship on Weibo

For most social media platforms around the world, there is a Chinese copy. Instead of Facebook, there’s Renren. Instead of WhatsApp, there’s QQ. Instead of Tumblr, there’s Diandian. Instead of YouTube, there’s Youku. Our focus today will be the Twitter substitute Weibo.

Over 50 accounts were recently shut down due to the publication of “politically harmful information.” The owner of the platform stated that they did this based on laws and regulations that they have to abide by, but users of the platform think otherwise. Some of these removed members claim that their posts hadn’t been political in years. One specific member, Yu, said that his last political post was over two years ago.

This practice of shutting accounts down is nothing new to the platform. In 2013 people were detained due to “posting unverified or critical information” on Weibo. In 2018 around 10,000 accounts were taken down. These actions show that the application isn’t as unbiased as it could want you to believe.