Crackdowns cause China’s equivalent to Twitter to lose millions of users

After after five years of nonstop growth, China’s most popular social network is shedding users. Often referred to as “China’s Twitter,” Sina Weibo dropped from 309 million users at the beginning of 2012 to 281 million at the end of 2013, according to a study from the government-backed China Internet Network Information Center. The 28 million lost users represent a population more than twice the size of China’s capital, Beijing, and account for 9 percent of the network’s total users.

China’s social media equivalent to Twitter has lost millions of users, a report has claimed. Government-backed CNNIC has revealed that Weibo‘s user count dropped by 9% at the end of 2013 to 280.8 million, from 308.6 million the year before.The decline is the first drop in user numbers Weibo has experienced since figures from 2010, leading many to believe the social network is losing out to new instant-messaging apps. CNNIC’s report suggests this theory may be correct, as around 37% of users who stopped using Weibo began using WeChat, which has grown in popularity.