Chinese microblogging service Weibo deletes over 41,000 posts for ‘creating trouble’ during Beijing Winter Olympics, asks users to keep calm when commenting on the games
- Weibo also banned 850 accounts from posting on its platform, as it further tightened oversight of user-generated content
- Its action followed the online abuse heaped on Zhu Yi, the US-born figure skater who fell during her Winter Olympics debut for Team China on Sunday
Some internet users are “creating trouble” at a time when the whole country is “immersed in the strong atmosphere of the Winter Olympics”, Weibo said in a post published on Tuesday. “[These users] attacked athletes with irony and insulting language and spread false information … we encourage internet users to watch the competition in a calm mood.”
“Please don’t attack athletes for an accidental mistake,” Weibo said in its latest post on Wednesday. “Emotional words only create more pressure for athletes.”
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Tears and online criticism as China’s US-born skater Zhu Yi falters in another Olympic routine
The hashtag “Zhu Yi has fallen” quickly became a top trending topic on Weibo on Sunday, gaining 200 million views in just a few hours, before it was apparently censored later. “Shame on Zhu Yi,” one netizen wrote on Weibo after her failed routine. Zhu’s selection for the Games had already been a controversial topic after she was picked at the expense of a China-born athlete.
