June 4 blackout: China’s Weibo blocks overseas users from posting video and photos

Millions of overseas users of China’s biggest Twitter-like social media platform were blocked from posting pictures or video on their feeds on Sunday, the 28th anniversary of the bloody June 4 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Users within the country were also prevented from changing their profile information and adding visuals to comments on other people’s posts on the Sina Weibo platform, which hosts more than 80 per cent of all microblogging activity on the mainland.

The other photographers who snapped Tiananmen’s Tank Man, and their memories of June 4, 1989 in Beijing

Sina Weibo suddenly announced at about 11.09am on Saturday that it was upgrading its system and the restrictions would remain in place until Monday.

“[We] appeal to users for understanding and forgiveness for the inconvenience caused,” the company said.

Each year, commemorations are held around the world to remember the hundreds, if not more than 1,000, student protesters killed in Tiananmen Square by troops sent in to suppress the pro-democracy movement in 1989.

But the event is not marked on the mainland, where discussion of the crackdown has been suppressed for nearly three decades.