Top Chinese official warns Sina's Twitter-like service

A top Chinese communist party official has urged the country's Internet companies to firmly put an end to the spread of fake and harmful information, a statement that appears to be a warning to one of China's most popular Twitter-like websites.

Liu Qi, a member of China's politburo and party secretary of Beijing, made the comment on Tuesday as he visited the Chinese Internet firm Sina, according to state media reports. Liu praised the company for its achievements with Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like microblogging platform with 200 million registered users. But he also urged China's Internet firms to improve the management and application of new technology, while working to stamp out harmful information over the Web. He also called on China's microblog users to be responsible and counter the spread of fake information.