Weibo chairman backs Chinese censors’ crackdown and promises ‘ecologically sound’ cyberspace
- Cao Guowei also promises to promote government-affiliated accounts to guide online debate in article for magazine published by country’s online regulator
- Weibo has already started revealing user locations to combat ‘misinformation’ and uses a network of volunteers to monitor and report content
Writing in a journal published by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s internet regulator and censor, Cao Guowei said rules such as a real-name registration system, displaying users’ locations and the role of Weibo users in monitoring other accounts had all helped to clean up the platform.
He also said the site would help promote government-affiliated accounts to set the tone for online discussion.
“Cyberspace is the common spiritual home of hundreds of millions of users. It is in the public interest if [we keep] cyberspace clean and ecologically sound,” Cao wrote in the article published on Thursday.
The language echoes remarks previously made by President Xi Jinping, who told a 2016 symposium on cybersecurity: “It is against peoples’ interests if the ecology of cyberspace deteriorates.”