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China's
popular Sina Weibo microblogging platform reverses decision to block
'homosexual' content following storm of online protest
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China's
popular Weibo microblogging platform on Monday reversed a decision to block
"homosexual" content, in an unusual concession to a storm of online
protest at the weekend.
Sina Weibo
said in a statement Friday it had begun a three-month-long "clean-up
campaign" to remove "illegal" content, including "manga and
videos with pornographic implications, promoting violence or (related to)
homosexuality".
But the
Twitter-like platform backtracked on Monday, stating on its administrators'
official account: "This clean-up of games and manga is no longer directed
at homosexual content, but is primarily to clean up pornographic and bloody,
violent content."
It also
thanked the public for "discussions and suggestions".
Weibo's
decision on gay content had prompted a tide of protest from outraged users who
rallied behind the hashtag "#IamGay", viewed some 240 million times
before it was banned by the platform on Saturday.
Even the
Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily jumped into the discussion,
posting an essay promoting LGBT acceptance to its official Weibo account on
Saturday. The posting was viewed nearly 6.5 million times.
"Everyone
is unique and sexuality is just one side of us that differs, just like skin
colour, height and weight," the essay said.
But it
added that "even homosexual people are regular citizens" whose
affiliated content was not above being subjected to censorship laws against
porn and violence.
Monday's
reversal was met with an outpouring of support.
"I
support Sina in clearing out pornographic content, but it definitely must not
do so as before and target homosexuality -- that kind of discrimination is
wrong," wrote one user.
"Through
everyone's unrelenting efforts, we finally got a basic right -- how rare!"
wrote another.
A third
said: "Although I still don't like you, I thank you."
Gay Voices,
which has since 2009 been one of Weibo's major LGBT accounts with some 230,000
followers, had on Friday declared it would be forced to indefinitely suspend
its postings.
On Monday
it was back online and thanking supporters, saying: "Only by speaking up
can we affect change."
Weibo's
purge was the latest move in a crackdown by the ruling Communist Party to clear
the Chinese internet of any content deviating from its "core values of
socialism", while stifling criticism of social norms and established
policies.
The
platform -- which has some 400 million active monthly users -- said in its
original Friday statement that it was merely implementing China's new
cybersecurity law and had already removed some 56,240 items.
'A step
further'
Much of the
homosexual content on Weibo is fuelled not by LGBT activists, who are quite
low-profile, but by the large online community of "funu"
("rotten girls") -- heterosexual women who are avid fans of male gay
romances and share comics or stories, frequently erotic.
The affair
has highlighted the cultural gap between younger Chinese more open to LGBT
issues and "China's older generation -- mostly very conservative
40-year-old men -- who are now the main force of our society because they
control the resources," Xiao Tie, director of the Beijing LGBT Center,
told AFP, using a nickname.
Xiao Tie
said the homosexuality ban was a result of over-cautiousness in the absence of
specific information from authorities on what kind of content should be
censored.
"Sina
Weibo doesn't want to make trouble, so they went a step further with their
censorship before the government even asked for it," she said.
China has a
mixed track record with gay themes in cultural products.
Last year
it banned gay content from all online streaming platforms
Last month
it pulled the Oscar-winning film "Call Me by Your Name" from the
ongoing Beijing International Film Festival.
But after a
two-year delay, Chinese theatres on Friday finally released "Seek
McCartney", a film about a secret homosexual romance between Chinese and
French lovers that has been hailed as the country's first gay movie.
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