【英语中国】中国微博出故障 用户担心受打压

Users of China's microblogging services are on edge after a series of unexplained glitches in the last two days disrupted the popular Twitter-like social-networking tools, raising fears of a government crackdown.

First, the microblogging service on Web portal Sohu.com (SOHU) became inaccessible over the weekend, before resuming service. Then on Monday a 'beta' icon--suggesting testing of some sort--appeared beside the logo for Sina Weibo, Sina.com's popular service, and also on microblogging services by Netease (NTES) and Tencent (TCEHY, 0700.HK) as well. Then, on Tuesday evening, users reported that Netease's microblogging service was suddenly 'under maintenance' and accounts were inaccessible.

Lianhe Zaobao, a Chinese-language newspaper based in Singapore, reported on its website that the Sohu outage was due to censorship compliance issues, causing users to speculate that microblogging, an increasingly popular Internet application, may be in danger of being restricted or shuttered.

A customer service representative at Sohu confirmed that Sohu Weibo was closed between Friday night and Monday, but said it was closed for maintenance rather than a government order.

Liu Qi, vice general manager of Sina's marketing department, denied that the site's 'beta' version icon had anything to do with government orders or its competitors, and said it is unnecessary for users to worry that the microblogging service will be shut down. Liu said the site has technically been in a trial stage since its launch last August, and is currently planning a relaunch for its first year anniversary.

Still, the fact that several microblogging services have simultaneously displayed 'beta' version icons is worrying many users, especially since 'site maintenance' has been used in the past by Chinese websites as an excuse to address outages related to private discussions with the government. Adding to concerns, some Twitter users are swapping rumors that microblogging services have been ordered to purge their sites of sensitive content, and are referring to this as the 'July 13 Kill Bloggers Incident.'

Internet users are growing increasingly wary of government Internet control in China, as a growing number of high-profile sites are blocked and highly publicized events like Google's (GOOG) decision to stop filtering its Chinese search results raise public awareness of censorship.

Last year, Twitter itself was blocked in China, and a similar Chinese service called Fanfou was shut down. Though the two services didn't become popular among mainstream Internet users, newer microblogging sites started by Sina, Sohu and Netease--which are policed by the websites in accordance with self-censorship rules--began to gain popularity. Sina Weibo, the most popular of the microblogging sites, currently has more than five million users.

'Who can tell me what this 'beta version' icon means? I'm scared,' wrote one user called kymhenry. Other users wrote open pleas to Sina to not delete their entries. One user under the name Parrot Shi Hang wrote on his microblog that he is exchanging contact information with friends made through the service, and racing to back up his entries and comments.

The concerns come just after the government-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences published a report about the dangers of social networking sites. The report, published July 7, singled out Facebook (also blocked in China) as an example of how social-networking sites can be used as tools for subversion, violate user privacy, and said they are abused by Western intelligence agencies.

过去几天，一系列莫名其妙的小故障导致中国的微博服务中断，引起了用户的不安，人们担心政府将整顿这种广受欢迎的、类似于Twitter的社交网络工具。

新浪微博页面 首先，门户网站搜狐网的微博服务周末一度无法接入。之后， 新浪微博的标志旁边周一打上了“beta”符号（意为测试版），网易和腾讯的微博服务上也出现了这个符号。然后用户于周二晚报告说网易的微博服务突然“处于维护中”，账号也无法接入了。

新加坡中文报纸《联合早报》在其网站上报道称搜狐微博暂停服务是由于审查合规问题。这一报道致使用户推测微博这一愈发受到欢迎的互联网应用程序或许有受到限制或停用的危险。

搜狐网的客服代表证实于周五晚至周一期间关闭了搜狐微博，但说是为了维护而不是由于政府的命令。

新浪网营销中心副总经理刘奇否认网站打出“测试版”符号与政府命令或其它竞争者有关，并说用户不必担心微博服务会被关闭。他说自去年8月启用以来，微博网站严格来说一直处于试用阶段，目前正在为其一周年纪念日策划再次启用仪式。

尽管如此，几家网站的微博服务同时出现“beta”版本符号仍让许多用户焦虑，特别是由于过去中国的网站与政府进行不公开谈判造成网站停用时，曾以“网站维护”充当借口。让人更为忧虑的是，部分Twitter用户正在交流一些流言，称微博服务网站被勒令清除网站中的敏感内容，并称之为“713杀博事件”( July 13 Kill Bloggers Incident)。

随着越来越多的知名网站受到屏蔽，加上谷歌决定停止审查其中文搜索引擎等受到广泛宣传的事件让公众意识到审查的存在，中国的互联网用户对政府的互联网控制措施越来越心存警惕。

去年，Twitter被中国屏蔽，与之类似的中文服务“饭否”也被关闭。尽管这两个网站在主流网民中并不普及，但由新浪网、搜狐网和网易网启动的微博网站却开始蓬勃发展。作为最受欢迎的微博网站，新浪微博目前的用户超过500万人。这些网站均依据自我审查制度受到网站的监管。

一位名叫kymhenry的用户写道，谁能告诉我“beta版本”符号是什么意思？我害怕。其它用户公开请求新浪网不要删除他们的条目。一位名叫Parrot Shi Hang的用户在他的微博上写道，他正和通过微博结交的朋友交流联络信息，并赶快把他的条目和评论备份起来。

在此之前，政府支持的中国社科院发表报告指出了社交网站的危险性。这份于7月7日发表的报告以Facebook（也被中国屏蔽）为例指出社交网站可被用作颠覆和侵犯用户隐私的工具，并称这些网站被西方国家情报机构所利用。