China reins in popular microbloggers

The Chinese government is clamping down on prominent microbloggers who have been critical of the state, often for unrelated charges, Bloomberg reported. China’s top court issued an interpretation last week saying Web users could face jail time if defamatory rumors they put online are read by more than 5,000 people or reposted more than 500 times. On September 10, mircroblogger Dong Rubin, who has 45,000 followers, was detained for misreporting the worth of his business. Last month, American-Chinese venture capitalist Charles Xue, who has 12 million followers, was detained on charges of soliciting prostitutes.