Weibo

Weibo (Chinese: 微博; pinyin: Wēibó), previously Sina Weibo (Chinese: 新浪微博; pinyin: Xīnlàng Wēibó), is a Chinese microblogging (weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily active users) as of Q1 2022. The platform has been a huge financial success, with surging stocks, lucrative advertising sales and high revenue and total earnings per quarter. At the start of 2018, it surpassed the US$30 billion market valuation mark for the first time. In March 2014, Sina Corporation announced a spinoff of Sina Weibo, a separate entity called simply "Weibo", and filed an IPO under the symbol WB. Sina carved out 11% of Weibo in the IPO, with Alibaba owning 32% post-IPO. The company began trading publicly on 17 April 2014. In March 2017, Sina launched Sina Weibo International Version. In November 2018, Sina Weibo suspended its registration function for minors under the age of 14. In July 2019, Sina Weibo announced that it would launch a two-month campaign to clean up pornographic and vulgar information, named "Project Deep Blue" (蔚蓝计划). On 29 September 2020, the company announced it would go private again due to rising tensions between the US and China. Sina had gone public on the Nasdaq in 2000. As of September 2021 Sina Weibo had 523 million active monthly users, with three in seven of those using the site daily. Sina Weibo has attracted criticism over censoring its users.