Photo: Screenshot of Sina Weibo

The Beijing office of China's top cyberspace authority on Wednesday summoned personnel in charge of China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo platform and ordered the company to immediately correct its faults, which include interfering in an online communication order and spreading information in violation of laws and regulations. 

As part of the punishment, the Beijing municipal cyberspace affairs regulator also ordered Sina Weibo to suspend its search ranking function for one week starting Wednesday to June 17, as well as the top discussion ranking function for the same period of time. 

The platform's ranking services have been widely criticized for being easily manipulated financially. Many netizens have complained there are too many high ranking topics exclusively on entertainment celebrities. 

The punishment decision was made public on the cyberspace administration's official site, but the details of the incident were not fully disclosed in the notice. Many believe it refers to the public opinion event which led to the fall of Jiang Fan, who was the president of Alibaba's e-commerce platforms Taobao and Tmall, and was removed from its company partnership, after an internal investigation into allegations of improper behavior.

Jiang was also stripped of a partnership in Alibaba Group in April, after his wife surnamed Dong accused him of engaging in an extramarital affair, which stirred up a public relations storm on Weibo. Alibaba later said Jiang had negatively impacted the company's image.

The personnel involved will be also punished and the regulator has also fined Weibo an undisclosed sum.

Officials with the cyberspace administration stressed the responsibilities of online platforms and emphasized the internal review process, which should not allow the spread of illegal information or the interference of normal presentation and communication online.

Global Times