Protests in China as social media site Weibo bans homosexual content

‘#Iamgay’ trends in Mandarin – until censors also delete online rallying cry

Jane Dalton
Sunday 15 April 2018 18:53 BST
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A gay pride festival in Shanghai last year. Now Weibo is banning homosexual references
A gay pride festival in Shanghai last year. Now Weibo is banning homosexual references

China has banned homosexual content from its version of Twitter, prompting an angry backlash with floods of users posting “#Iamgay” in protest.

But within hours of the objection trending, the platform had also banned the rallying hashtag – and deleted most of the comments on the subject, it was reported.

The social media site Weibo issued new guidelines on Friday as part of a three-month cleanup of certain content, such as pornographic images and videos, “bloody violence” and homosexuality, according to What’s on Weibo, an independent website.

​Weibo’s community manager said the changes were to “create a bright and harmonious community environment” and fulfil its corporate responsibility. The ban also covers the Grand Theft Auto game.

Within hours, Weibo’s announcement had been read millions of times and shared about 100,000 times. Hundreds of people starting posting “#Iamgay” in Mandarin, causing the slogan to start trending.

Some users then added “#Iambreakingthelaw”.

However, Weibo appeared to then ban the hashtags, and deleted most of the related 150,000-plus comments, Deutsche Welle reported.

Messages replacing posts explained that they contained “illegal content”.

One Weibo member had posted: “I am gay and I’m proud. Even if I get taken down there are tens of millions like me!”

Twitter users described China’s clampdown as “a worrying development”.

One, LissofAo, wrote: “I have quit Weibo. And I heard from my friends that the tag #IAmGay, which was read over 210 million times on Weibo, has been deleted by the authority. China has taken measures to oppress LGBT groups. No surprise. And I bet there will be further steps to inhibit us.”

China, where traditional views predominate, has a poor record of tolerance towards homosexuality. A survey last year by a German website rated it as the worst country in the world for LGBT+ people.

The official account of Weibo on Twitter, @SinaWeibo, has not tweeted since 2016.

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