Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, released a notice on Thursday saying that it would pilot a new function - forbidding a user from making comments for three days once his or her comments were deleted and their accounts were blacklisted by another user.
Sina Weibo said the new function aimed to deal with a long-standing problem - some users engage in verbal harassment in the comment section under other users' posts.
"Sina Weibo had offered the function of shutting down all comments or comments with certain words… however, we still have numerous complaints on language attacks in comments," read the Thursday notice.
In an effort to control verbal attacks on others and promote a better environment on the platform, Sina Weibo decided to test the function of banning users from making comments once their comments under other users' posts were deleted and they have been added to a blacklist by the accounts.
The function would be open to accounts which have more than 100,000 followers and may be expanded to other users according to the feedback.
The new function has caused concern among users. Some said it may give too much power to some users who may stop others from commenting when the latter are not engaged in verbal harassment.
Sina Weibo responded that it is totally the users' right to delete comments and add someone to their blacklist. Users can post views on their own account instead of making comments.
