Crackdown on Chinese Bloggers Who Fight the Censors With Puns

One of China’s largest hosts of Twitter-like microblogs decreed new punishments for users who post comments that its editors — and by extension, China’s government censors — deem inappropriate.

The service, Sina Weibo, imposed “user contracts” that award each of its 300 million microbloggers a starting score of 80 points. Points can be deducted for online comments that are judged to be offensive. When a blogger reaches zero, the service stated, a user’s account will be canceled. Users who suffer lesser penalties can restore their 80 points by avoiding violations for two months. Deductions will cover a wide range of sins, including spreading rumors, calling for protests, promoting cults or superstitions and impugning China’s honor, the service stated. Most notably, the contracts also will punish time-honored tactics that bloggers have used to avoid censorship, like disguising comments on censored topics by using homonyms (where two different Chinese characters have nearly identical sounds), puns and other dodges.