The state of microblogging （微博, or weibo） is in question after the recent inaccessibility of Sohu Weibo. From the Wall Street Journal’s Real Time China blog:
A customer service representative at Sohu confirmed that Sohu Weibo was closed between Friday night and Monday, but said it was closed for maintenance rather than a government order.
Liu Qi, vice general manager of Sina’s marketing department, denied that the site’s “beta” version icon had anything to do with government orders or its competitors, and said it is unnecessary for users to worry that the microblogging service will be shut down. Liu said the site has technically been in a trial stage since its launch last August, and is currently planning a relaunch for its first year anniversary.
Still, the fact that several microblogging services have simultaneously displayed “beta” version icons is worrying many users, especially since “site maintenance” has been used in the past by Chinese websites as an excuse to address outages related to private discussions with the government. Adding to concerns, some Twitter users are swapping rumors that microblogging services have been ordered to purge their sites of sensitive content, and are referring to this as the “July 13 Kill Bloggers Incident.”
