Microblogging in China The website's layout, API, and mode of use was highly similar to Twitter, which was created earlier in 2006. Fanfou's users increased from 0.3 million to 1 million in the first half of 2009. The users included HP China, the "Southern Weekly", artist Ai Weiwei, writer Lian Yue () and TV commentator Liang Wendao (). Some other weibo services, such as Jiwai, Digu, Zuosa and Tencent's Taotao were launched in 2006-2009. After the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, the CPC government shut down most of the domestic weibo services, including Fanfou and Jiwai. Many popular non China-based microblogging services such as
Internet censorship in China Square protest of 1989. According to the government's white paper in 2010 on the subject of internet in China, the government protects “the safe flow of internet information and actively guides people to manage websites in accordance with the law and use the internet in a wholesome and correct way.” The government, therefore, prevents people on the internet from “divulging state secrets, subverting state power and jeopardizing national unification; damaging state honor” and “disrupting social order and stability." Law-abiding Chinese websites such as Sina Weibo censors words related to the protest in its search engine. Weibo is one of the