Weibo Rules and Regulations – Ashley Talks 30

Hi guys! Today I’m going to talk about the rules and regulations of Weibo.



All content published on Weibo is monitored and regulated both by national authorities and by Sina Weibo. In general, information which is deemed sensitive, harmful to the country’s territorial integrity or contrary to China’s constitution is not allowed to be displayed on Weibo. Obscenity, indecency, violence, Internet bullying and privacy intrusions are also not permitted. Neither individual nor corporate users are allowed to publish the following kinds of information:

A.  Information that endangers national and community security (“sensitive information” in short) in accordance with existing laws and regulations, which:

1) Opposes the basic principles established by the constitution.

2) Harms the unity, sovereignty or territorial integrity of the nation.

3) Reveals national secrets, endangers national security, or threatens the honour or interests of the nation.

4) Incites ethnic hatred or ethnic discrimination, undermines ethnic unity, or harms ethnic traditions and customs.

5) Promotes evil teachings and superstitions.

6) Spreads rumours, disrupts social order and destroys social stability.

7) Promotes illicit activity, gambling, violence or calls for the committing of crimes.

8) Calls for the disruption of social order through illegal gatherings, formation of organisations, protests, demonstrations, mass gatherings and assemblies.

9) Has other content which is forbidden by laws, administrative regulations and national regulations.

B. Spam and malicious information, mainly as follows:

1) Fake trading and falsifying legitimate business.

2) Making or forwarding harmful comments/messages.

3) Launching fake campaigns, where followers are induced but the promised prize is not delivered.

4) Mass advertising posts by an automatic program or by other third-party software.

5) Meaningless and repetitive content sent by third-party software.

C.  Adult content, mainly as follows:

1) Obscene content which describes sexual intercourse or explicitly publicizes pornography.

2) Erotic pictures, video, text or audio of a sexual nature.

D. Superstitious elements

Depictions of witches, goblins, ghosts and other superstitious elements.

Additional notes:
Users should be especially cautious about content that might be considered rumour, incitement or information that poses potential harm to China’s territorial sovereignty or national unity. Avoid elaborate maps that show national boundaries and historical maps that are out of date. Cute, cartoonish, abstract or iconized styles are often acceptable as long as they don’t violate the advice in part A.

According to the regulations, users logging more than 5 posts  with “sensitive information” will be suspended from posting for 48 hours and have the relevant content deleted. Furthermore, those users posting “sensitive content” with “malicious intent” will be suspended from posting for more than 48 hours and face possible account termination.

Meanwhile, users should not infringe on copyright by copying others’ Weibo posts without attribution and should seek permission when necessary. More details about these dos and don’ts can be found at the following link which is in Chinese.

Let’s stay in touch! You can connect with me through