Weibo is a Chinese microblogging site that is somewhat like Tumblr and Twitter mixed together. The site is popular in China, as many other services are banned. However, Weibo is under strict control of the government. That government is becoming increasingly hostile towards China’s LGBTQ community, seeing it as a potential threat to their control over the nation’s enforced thoughts, morals, beliefs, and customs.
Weibo banned LGBTQ content about a year ago, but reversed course after a large public backlash. They claimed they were only trying to cut down on pornographic content. Now it seems the problem could be much worse. Weibo is outwardly stating that their purpose is to enforce homophobia by banning the #Les (short for lesbian) hashtag.
#Les
On Weibo, you can follow Hashtags. Large ones are called “super topics.” The #Les super topic had over 140,000 followers and 125,000 posts. Weibo deleted all the content and removed the #Les supertopic. Weibo says they’re removing posts that are not inline with (their narrow views of) “correct marriage views and ethics.” Of course, ask any decent person, and a “correct marriage” is about love, not gender or reproduction.
#IAmLes
Weibo users have begun using the #IAmLes hashtag to fight the ban, but it will likely face the same ban soon enough. China’s government is becoming more hostile to LGBTQ people, and Weibo will fall in line.
Just another online group to fall victim to hate and ignorant bigotry for an insecure and senseless government.
Source: Precious Adesina, PinkNews