Weibo is now giving popular users the right to censor other users
“Who’s there to protect our rights?”
Trolls are a common headache for all social media platforms. China’s Weibo has decided to let its users handle trolls… by handing an elite few the power to ban other users.
How Weibo became China’s most popular blogging platform
The decision to ban someone is left entirely up to the user -- Weibo doesn’t review the decision, so theoretically, a person could be banned even if it isn’t a personal attack or harassment.
To be clear, banned users can still make posts from their own account -- they just aren’t able to comment on posts from other users (for three days). It’s also possible for banned users to repost someone else’s story and add their own comments, a little like Twitter’s quote function.
Weibo’s announcement was met with a wave of criticism from average users, who are not happy about more rights being given to more popular accounts -- and warn that it will be abused.