Microblog, WikiLeaks top 2010 Internet terms in China

Web users searched the definition of the term "microblog" more than three million times on Hudong.com this year, while they sought out the meaning of "WikiLeaks" nearly 800,000 times, the website said Thursday.

Hudong.com also asked Internet surfers to vote on the most popular terms on the web, with both "microblog" and "WikiLeaks" receiving a large number of votes, it said, without specifying their ranking.

Also high on the list was "showing off my father", a term referring to a fatal hit-and-run accident where the drunken perpetrator boasted to witnesses that he would go unpunished because his father was a high-ranking policeman.

The man's actual comment was: "My father is Li Gang," but the website did not use that line because it has been banned by China's Internet censors.

Other terms included the "era of inflation," reflecting soaring price rises throughout China and the "vuvuzela trumpet", the plastic horn that provided the droning soundtrack to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

The list of popular terms reflected the issues that web users in China are concerned with, the website said.

China has the world's largest online population of over 420 million, with many using the Internet as a forum to express opinions in a way rarely seen in a country where the traditional media remains under strict state control.

(c) 2010 AFP