SINA says censorship may affect ability to operate Weibo

SINA said in a regulatory filing Friday night, "Government regulation and censorship of information disseminated over the Internet in China may adversely affect our ability to operate Weibo...Although we attempt to monitor the content posted on Weibo, we may not always be able to effectively control or restrict the content generated or placed on Weibo by our users and the PRC government may increase the level of Internet censorship. On March 31, 2012, we had to disable the comment feature of Weibo for three days to clean up comments related to certain rumors that were posted on our website. If in the future the PRC government authorities decide to restrict the dissemination of information via microblogging services or online postings in general, Weibo could be impaired or even ordered to shut down, which may adversely impact our website traffic, ability to monetize this aspect of our business and our brand equity. Furthermore, we may be subject to claims based on the user-generated content posted on Weibo."