Microblogging in China in spreading the news quickly and discussing and evaluating government response. In 2012, there were 309 million people microblogging in China. "Wei boke" (微博客) and "weixing boke" (微型博客), commonly abbreviated as "weibo" (微博), are Chinese words for "microblog". A China-based microblogging service often names itself a weibo by putting it after the name of the service (e.g. Tencent Weibo, Sina Weibo). A similar word "围脖" () is used as Internet slang for "weibo". Fanfou () is the earliest notable weibo service. It was launched in Beijing on May 12, 2007 by the co-founder of Xiaonei (now Renren) Wang Xing ().
Sina Weibo might not always be in favor of government officials, many Chinese officials opened Weibo accounts as to give their own version of events. On 16 March 2012, all the Beijing users of Sina Weibo were told to register with their real names. From 31 March 2012, the comment function of Sina Weibo was shut down for three days, along with Tencent QQ. In May 2012, Sina Weibo introduced new restrictions on the content its 300 million users can post. An example of Sina Weibo's censorship and manipulation of discussion or public social activity was the blocking of Foxconn workers' strikes