Sina Weibo the domestic microblogging services including the first weibo service Fanfou. Many popular non-China-based microblogging services like Twitter, Facebook, and Plurk have been blocked from viewing since then. Sina's CEO Charles Chao considered this to be an opportunity. SINA Corporation launched the tested version of Sina Weibo on 14 August 2009. Basic functions including message, private message, comment and re-post were made possible in September 2009. A Sina Weibo–compatible API platform for developing third-party applications was launched on 28 July 2010. On 1 December 2010, the website experienced an outage, which administrators later said was due to the increasing numbers of
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