'Father' of firewall's microblog removed after user backlash
Sina Corp was forced to delete the microblog content of a key player in the mainland's online security after a flood of criticism from internet users.
The microblog's author, Fang Binxing , is president of the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. He has also been hailed as 'the father of the Great Firewall of China' for his role in building the mainland's sophisticated system of blocking free internet access to its 420 million users.
Fang's microblog on Sina's Weibo site was targeted by users wanting to vent their spleens about internet censorship, activists said yesterday.
Weibo's microblog site is the mainland version of Twitter, which is blocked by the internet firewall.
Fang's microblog was set up only recently and he had posted to it three times yesterday morning. But internet users reacted strongly to his efforts, with comments pouring in minutes after he posted to the site - most of them ridiculing or criticising him for being the person behind the mainland's internet firewall.
Some internet users said it was a targeted campaign by activists, while others believed it was a spontaneous outpouring of anger.
One internet user wrote: 'The GFW [Great Firewall] has deprived us of our freedom to access the internet. Now the people will deprive you of your right to use a microblog.
'Any regrets? If you can't accept this, you can blacklist Sina's microblog.'
Other users tried to rally support from Twitter users - who access the blocked Twitter site by scaling the firewall - to monitor and 'besiege' Fang's microblog with negative comments.
Editors of the microblog were quick to remove the comments, but many harshly worded postings still made their way through.
Internet analysts yesterday said thousands of negative comments had been posted on Fang's site before they were censored at about 1pm.
But internet users continued their assault on other platforms. A posting on other mainland bulletins calling for internet users to 'besiege' Fang's microblog had more than 4,000 followers by 3pm yesterday.
Liu Qi , a Sina spokesman, said Fang asked the microblog site to remove his posts and the comments that followed. Sina also blocked users from searching for 'Fang Binxing' in Chinese on its microblog site as the comments were 'too negative', an editor said yesterday. Sina had invited Fang to open the account.
The university said Fang was not available for comment yesterday.
