China's Weibo microblog introduces user contracts

The Twitter-like microblog in China, Sina Weibo, just introduced the new punishment for users who post comments, which the editors and, by extension, government censors, consider inappropriate. Users start with 80 points where they lose points when they break any of the rules. If the user’s point fell below 60, he/she will be deemed “low credit.” Possible cancellation of the account will be implemented if the score hits 0. Is this ethical? It would be a violation of free speech in the U.S. but this is an interesting example to follow as China tries to continue to stifle the inevitable spread of two-way, real-time communication across its continent in the absence of well defined rules online.

Sina Corp, China’s biggest Internet portal and parent to microblogging site, Weibo, is also apparently looking to beef up profits from the popular social channel. At the end of Q1 2012, the company had a loss of more than $13M, but has since stepped up their advertisements, signing 50 new accounts. 


Another random thought I had was that it must be so much easier to put whole concepts into a 140-character tweet when you get to use Chinese characters that each mean a whole concept vs. a single Roman alphabet letter!