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Censors for China's Sina Weibo social network go through 3,000 posts per hour

Censors for China's Sina Weibo social network go through 3,000 posts per hour

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(FLICKR jonrussell) sina weibo
(FLICKR jonrussell) sina weibo

Who are the faces behind internet censorship in China? For censorship of Sina Weibo, the country's Twitter-like service, about 150 college-aged men working from an office building outside Beijing sift through about three million posts per day — or about 3,000 per hour. Computer algorithms flag material automatically, and censors go through manually to manage posts. The state requires services like Weibo to censor material posted to their websites, and the task of censoring the entire web is a daunting one that means tens of thousands across the country are employed by such work. Reuters interviewed four former censors to hear a bit about the process and the seemingly typical young men behind it — be sure to read the full story for more.