China State Council’s new weibo draws ire for barring comments

China’s State Council, the country’s highest governmental body, launched a microblog account, Gazette of the State Council, last week, the Beijing News reported on Tuesday.

Netizens welcomed the move but also criticised the State Council for barring comments from the public.

The Sina Weibo account has drawn more than 300,000 followers with 15 posts, as of Tuesday. Each post consists of a headline of regulations and a link to the State Council’s website.

“I won’t follow someone if I can’t comment,” said one weibo user.

“The government should encourage interaction and collect grass-roots opinions via weibo,” said Wang Xixin, a law professor at Peking University.