China’s internet watchdog hasorderedWeibo, the country’s Twitter-like social network, to suspend its “trending topics” feature for a one-week rectification period beginning Wednesday.

“Weibo will strictly follow the managing requirements … actively maintaining online communication order and constructing a healthy Weibo community ecosystem,” the microblogging platformwroteon Wednesday.

The same day, the Cyberspace Administration of China summoned Weibo’s representatives and criticized the company for “disrupting online communication order, spreading illegal information, and other problems.” In addition to the rectification order, the CAS instructed its regional office in Beijing, where Weibo is based, to issue the company an unspecified fine.

The CAC said the penalty was linked to a case involving a person surnamed Jiang but did not give further details. Netizens and domestic media have speculated that the person in question may be Jiang Fan, a top executive at Taobao, an Amazon-like online marketplace.

In an April Weibo post, Jiang’s wife had accused her husband of having an affair with a social media influencer. However, discussion about the case wassaidto be censored by Weibo. Taobao’s parent company, e-commerce giant Alibaba, has a31.5% stakein the social platform.

Weibo had not responded to Sixth Tone’s interview request by time of publication.

This isn’t the first time China’s dominant microblogging site has fallen foul of state regulators. In January 2018, the CACreprimandedWeibo for disseminating and hyping “harmful content.” In response, the sitesuspendedseveral of its features, including its trending topics list and Q&A forum, for one week.

Editor: David Paulk.

(Header image: IC)