Even Santa Claus is on Sina Weibo

A quick search on Sina’s Weibo today revealed that Santa Claus (圣诞老人) uses the service, and his identity has even been verified (that’s what the “V” stands for: 新浪认证, or “Sina Verified”).

Santa Claus (圣诞老人) on Sina Weibo

But actually, a little bit more reading reveals that the account is used for Christmas promotions by Sina itself:

> 新浪微博圣诞节活动

That account is actually a year old, though. There’s another one for 2011, based in Guangzhou rather than Beijing (??).

Hmmm, does this qualify as abuse of an identity verification system, at a time when Beijing is supposedly cracking down on accounts that aren’t clearly linked to real people? I’m sure Santa Claus is outraged.

Anyway, merry Christmas! 圣诞快乐!

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John Pasden

John is a Shanghai-based linguist and entrepreneur, founder of AllSet Learning.

Comments

  1. Someone thinks this story is fantastic…

    This story was submitted to Hao Hao Report – a collection of China’s best stories and blog posts. If you like this story, be sure to go vote for it….

  2. Sina should not be surprised when all they get is a lump of coal (and a sleigh full of money from those Santa endorsed promos) this Dec. 25th 🙂

  3. As long as Santa is not from Beijing – he can use the fake identity 🙂

  4. I don’t want to follow Santa on weibo, but are you on it?

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