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 monthly active users; 85% of them use Weibo on their mobile; there are over 100 million messages posted by users each day; 70% of Weibo's active users are at university level; 50.10% of Weibo users are male, 49.90% are female; with 90 million followers, actress Xie Na is the number 1 Weibo celebrity. Although the competition in China social media platforms is very fierce, Sina Weibo still comes out and becomes the most popular one. The wider use of mobile technologies in China also increases the popularity of it. After the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, China shut down most of