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 ().
Homosexuality in China Weibo user called “"Zhu Ding Zhen" 竹顶针” made a post, saying, “"I am gay, what about you?" 我是同性恋，你呢？” This post was read more than 2.4 billion times and shared by about 3 million users, commented by 1.5 million users, and liked by 9.5 million users in less than 3 days. On April 16, Weibo posted another announcement to reverse its previous decision, stating that Weibo would stop banning pieces of contents related to homosexuality and expressed thanks to its users’ “discussions” and “suggestions.” Adult, consensual and non-commercial homosexuality has been legal in China since 1997, when the national penal code