This is Weibo’s “too much traffic” page. No small irony that the logo is not a free flying bird, but a giant fiery red eye.

Chinese users of online Twitter-alike Weibo can expect extra restrictions to the service in the wake of complaints from several authorities that users were publishing “false rumours” on the site, mostly to do with recent domestic political scandals involving deposed Chongqing mayor Bo Xilai, the escape from house arrest of activist Chen Guangcheng, plots to assassinate incumbent CCP leaders like Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, and stories regarding the change of leadership in neighbouring North Korea.

The new restrictions will see a “points system” introduced that acts very much like the drivers licence management system employed by many Western countries, including South Africa. Users will start off with a total 80 points, and each recorded infraction will lead to points deductions from their account. Once they reach 60 points, a “low credit” warning appears on their microblog, which restricts certain features until they either rehabilitate their usage, and restore their points after a two month probation period, or, if there are more infractions, face expulsion from the site indefinitely – no more Chinese Twitter for them!

The topics that will incur points deductions are strikingly familiar to anyone with experience of China’s arcane information and content restrictions, namely, users’ should not; spread rumours, publish untrue information, attack others with personal insults or libellous comments, oppose the basic principles of China’s constitution, reveal national secrets, threaten China’s honour, promote cults or superstitions, call for illegal protests or mass gatherings.

Chinese web users have long been subjected to very strict information control mechanisms tooled by the central government to restrict access to certain information groups and topics. This control extends across censorship of media content, restriction of search protocols online, and also increasingly to the blossoming communities of micro-bloggers that have sprung up across the country.

But analysts in the decadent West consider these new restrictions will pose few problems to China’s emerging class of net mavericks that regularly thumb their noses at central government’s censorship. Indeed one commentator, Kerry Brown from London’s Chatham House think tank says many users’ will simply adopt coded references for contentious topics, that will evade the censorship software Weibo administrators will use to trawl the information streams for users’ abusing the rules. She told the BBC,   “There is a tradition of indirect criticism in which people make points using coded references. I very much doubt these rules will change anything.”

Weibo’s parent compant, Sina Corp, reports that the service has somewhere over 300 millions users.

[Source: BBC News, Forbes]