China's social media Weibo criticised for spreading "harmful content"

China's popular social media Sina Weibo has been asked by the country's Internet regulator to overhaul sections that carry "harmful content".

App of Sina Weibo [File photo: VCG]

The Beijing office of the Cyberspace Administration of China on Saturday summoned Weibo's boss for talk concerning the company's failure to censor illegal information posted by its users.

"Content of wrong public opinion orientation, obscenity, low taste, and ethnic discrimination continued to spread on Sina Weibo," said a statement issued by the office. "The problems were serious."

"Sina Weibo has violated the country's laws and regulations, led online public opinions to wrong direction and left a very bad influence," it said.

The Weibo boss said operation of several sections would be suspended for a week for overhaul.

"Lessons would be drawn and management of the staff would be strengthened so as to be responsible to the society and Internet users," said the Weibo boss.

Weibo is China's Twitter-like social media that claims to have about 361 million monthly active users as of June last year.

The spread of false, illegal and harmful content on the Internet is a common issue facing countries around the world.

China's leadership has stressed building a "clean" cyberspace by providing more and better online content and putting in place a system for integrated Internet management.