China’s national library to archive 200 billion Weibo posts in project to preserve country’s digital heritage
- Sina, which had 462 million active users on Weibo at the end of 2018, was chosen as first partner for the initiative because of its enormous trove of data
The National Library of China will archive over 200 billion public posts on Weibo, the country’s popular Twitter-style microblogging site, as part of an initiative to preserve the digital heritage of the world’s biggest internet population.
More than 210 million news stories published on Sina.com, the news portal operated by the parent company of Weibo Sina Corp, together with 200 billion public posts on Weibo, will be archived under a non-profit project by the national library, according to a statement on Weibo’s official account on government services.
The goal of the project is to chronicle the evolution of civilisation in the internet era for the “long term development of information security and digitisation of the country”, Rao Quan, director of the national library, said in the statement on Monday.
Sina, which had 462 million active users on Weibo at the end of 2018, was chosen as first partner for the initiative because of its enormous trove of data which records both significant social events and public reaction to them, the company said. Other Chinese internet companies are being invited to participate in the initiative.
Data collected from Weibo and Sina.com will be stored on company servers while the national library and Sina will jointly analyse the data for policymaking and academic purposes.