Sense of balance

15 March 2013 By Katrina Hamlin Follow @KatrinaHamlin

Sites like Sina Weibo tread a fine line. Censor too little, and the government is unhappy; censor too much, and users are unhappy. Investors and advertisers have their own agenda. Elusive profitability depends on keeping everyone just happy enough.

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Sensitive posts can be deleted from China’s Sina Weibo microblog service as soon as five minutes after posting by the user, according to a study released on March 4 by independent researcher Tao Zhu.

Within the study’s data set, 30 percent of the posts removed from the site were deleted within thirty minutes of posting, and nearly 90 percent of all deletions happened within 24 hours of the initial posting. Around 82 percent of all the deleted posts were reposts.

Sina uses a system of key word searches and manual reviews to censor sensitive content, according to ‘Challenged in China’, a report released on March 12 by the Committee to Protect Journlists.

Company filings from U.S. listed Sina note that it is not practical to obey all rules from Beijing to the letter, “for reasons including existing user behavior, the nature of the microblogging product, and the lack of clarity on specific implementation procedures.”

Around 57 percent of Sina Weibo users in a sample of 29,998 accounts had never posted on their timeline and could be considered inactive, according to a study from the University of Hong Kong.

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