Beijing, Aug 27 (ANI): The Chinese operators of one of the country's most prominent websites have protested online against the notification sent to bloggers by the website's authorities, threatening to suspend the accounts of those who spread unfounded rumours, for one month.
In messages, the operators of Sina.com's Weibo microblog, equivalent to Twitter, detailed the suspensions of the bloggers.
The announcements, however, provoked a series of online protests, some of which were directed at the government on the assumption that it was behind the punishments.
The move could prove to be yet another concern of the government about its inability to curb free expression on the Internet against it.
On Monday, a member of the Politburo, the Communist Party committee that acts as China's collective leadership, visited Sina.com officials and said that they should "resolutely put an end to fake and misleading information."
The official, Beijing's party secretary Liu Qi, said that they should use new technology to better manage the microbloggers, whose numbers have surged in the last year, the New York Times reports.
The company's notices stated that two bloggers who had spread false rumors on Weibo would lose their right to post messages or to add followers for a month.
Some Weibo users, however, sarcastically criticized the company, saying that the notifications are spreading rumors more effectively than the original bloggers.
"I didn't know about the story till now. How tragic!" one blogger wrote, while another expressed outrage, saying: "How does Weibo know what's true or not? Who gives Weibo the right to silence its users?"
The Chinese authorities have pursued two tracks with regard to the Internet, allowing free debate on topics unrelated to high-level politics and governance. However, it carefully monitors, and sometimes bans, discussions on topics that are too sensitive.
Censors frequently notify users that a specific posting "was deleted according to relative laws and regulations." (ANI)
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