Coincidence? Sina Weiboâ€™s Curious Breakdown

Ray · Jul 31, 2012

Coincidence? Sina Weiboâ€™s Curious Breakdown

On the same night that Beijing officials released the long-awaited updated death toll from last weekendâ€™s floods in the capital, Sina Corp.â€™s Weibo microblog had a mysterious hiccup.

According to casual surveys taken online by users, the search function on the popular microblog was partially disabled in Beijing between Thursday evening and Friday morning.

Sina Corp. declined to comment on the outage.

Starting Thursday evening, Weibo users with accounts linked to Beijing reported strange results when they tried to use the siteâ€™s search function: Instead of the customary list of related users and posts, searches produced only a list of users. For example a search for â€œBeijingâ€ would turn up users who write under a handle that uses the name â€œBeijing,â€ but not a single post about the flooding that hit Beijing last weekend.

And that might have been the point. Itâ€™s not clear whether the search difficulties were due to a technical problem or the result of government orders, but given the specific geographical limitations â€“ users with no connection to Beijing reported normal search results â€” and the fact that the shutdown coincided with mounting pressure on the Beijing government over the flooding, the â€œduck ruleâ€ would suggest instructions from the top.

In any case, investors in Sina are likely to assume government interference in the absence of a company statement to the contrary. Sinaâ€™s share price has dropped almost 60% over the past year, partially on investor concerns about a tightening regulatory environment. In the past two quarters Sina has had to contend with the temporary closure of the comment function on the site as punishment for the spread of coup rumors in March, as well as proposed regulations that would make national a pilot plan in some cities that requires users to use real identification to use the service.

With the rise of new social media like Weibo, Chinaâ€™s government has taken more passive approach to managing information, putting the onus on websites to censor themselves according to government standards. The sites naturally have an interest in keeping dialogue lively, and so must thread the needle â€” keeping things spicy enough to attract and retain users, but not so much so that the government takes notice. In this case, it may be that Sina did not live up to the governmentsâ€™ expectations of what it should have done to curtail debate.

On the other hand, the closure of functions like content search is quite an annoyance to users. For now Sinaâ€™s Weibo is the dominant platform for the politically minded commenter, but given more severe controls and more frequent blackouts Chinaâ€™s ever inventive Internet users and entrepreneurs may just fashion a new way to exchange ideas, gripes, rants and photos of government officials floating in strange places.

With Chinaâ€™s top leaders expected to begin a power transition this fall, the portal to that twilight zone where access to information waxes and wanes without explanation, may just stay open a bit longer.

Coincidence? Sina Weibo Search Breaks Down at Curious Moment - China Real Time Report - WSJ
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More such blackouts will occur now that Hong Kong has gone up in flames!

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Coincidence? Sina Weiboâ€™s Curious Breakdown

Ray The Chairman Defence Professionals Moderator

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Coincidence? Sina Weiboâ€™s Curious Breakdown

Ray The Chairman Defence Professionals Moderator

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