Watershed moment as Weibo stops blocking gay content in China
Beijing: University of Queensland student Ting Ting Liu watched the watershed moment unfold in her homeland, China, online.
When Sina Weibo, the massive Chinese social media platform, suddenly banned gay content on Friday, the reaction from China’s smart phone generation - and their parents - was swift.
Millions of Chinese internet users came out in support of their gay and lesbian friends and family with the hashtag #Iamahomosexual. By Monday, the ban was dropped.
Sina Weibo, with a market capitalisation of US$25 billion, and a wary eye on the ruling communist party’s strict censorship and intolerance of spiritual pollution, had bowed to the people.
In a statement posted on Monday afternoon, the company said it would stop targeting gay content. “Thank you for your discussion and suggestions,” the statement said.
Ms Liu was an LGBT activist in China for a decade before moving to Australia to study for a PhD in digital technology and sexuality.
She hosted a pioneering online radio program, Lestalk, allowing Chinese people to talk about queer identity without coming out publicly.
She said it was one of the first broadcast programs for Chinese lesbians or "lala" and provided information and consolation to many lonely lalas.
She also founded a lesbian group offering counselling, film festivals and gatherings in southern China.
“A lot has happened in the last few days,” she said.
The Sina ban, initially replicated on other social media platforms such as WeChat’s Pengyouquan, had triggered a wave of public support for the LGBT community, she said.
“It indeed signified an important moment in China, because it shows that the LGBT community and pro-LGBT voice had become strong enough to make Sina to withdraw its ban.”
Millions of Sina Weibo posts featured the hashtags #I am homosexual or #I am a friend of a homosexual.
But also significant was the Communist Party’s official newspaper, People’s Daily, publishing an essay on Sunday stating that homosexual content is not related to pornography or violence, and comparing it to these things would trigger unwanted public anxiety.
“This articled conveyed the message that homosexuality is not a psychological illness or abnormal behaviour,” she said.
Homosexuality was legalised in China in 1997, and declassified as a mental illness in 2001.
Yet last June, China’s internet regulator published a new rule which grouped homosexuality with sexual abuse and violence in the definition of “abnormal sexual relationship” and banned content referring to homosexuality in online broadcasting.
The Brookings Institution’s Cheng Li suggested in September the regulation would prove a test of China’s legal system, as LGBT groups grew increasingly upset that their rights were being undermined.
Cheng Li noted that “China’s leading sexologist” Li Yinhe had been banned from social media for three months after posting an essay on Weibo last year arguing the new regulation violated the constitutional rights of sexual minorities.
A year earlier, a new TV regulation banned TV shows from showing homosexual relationships.
Manya Koetse, who runs the social media monitor What’s on Weibo, says “#I am a homosexual” is the most meaningful hashtag she has seen on Chinese social media in a long time.
As Weibo revised its decision, a new flood of comments welcomed the move, with the LGBT Weibo account declaring “a step forward” in respect.