Twitter, Asia | featured news

Hackers apparently broke into at least two of North Korea's government-run online sites Thursday, as tensions rose on the Korean Peninsula. The North's Uriminzokkiri Twitter and Flickr accounts stopped sending out content typical of that posted by the regime in Pyongyang, such as photos of North's leader Kim Jong Un meeting with military officials.

"Hello world from comms center in (hash)Pyongyang." That Twitter missive, sent Monday from Koryolink's main service center in downtown Pyongyang using my iPhone, marked a milestone for North Korea: It was believed to be the first tweet sent from a cellphone using the country's new 3G mobile data service.

China's Twitter was raucous Thursday with horn-tooting over Beijing's gold rush at the London Olympics, a digital reflection of the nation's exuberant mood - embellished with flashing emoticons. Earlier passions have been ignited on the site by a deadly high speed rail crash and outrage over factory pollution....

Everyone's made a joke they thought was funny only to see it fall flat, but Park Jung-geun's attempt at humor could see him jailed for up to seven years in South Korea. Park, a photographer by profession, re-tweeted some messages from North Korea's official twitter feed, such as reports on the late leader Kim Jong Il's travels across the country and negative tweets about South Korea.

China told foreign embassies Tuesday to stop publishing their own reports on air quality in the country, escalating its objections to a popular U.S. Embassy Twitter feed that tracks pollution in smoggy Beijing.

Move over Anthony Weiner, there is a new Casanova on Twitter. Chinese billionaire Wang Gongquan announced on the social media website that he was leaving his wife for his mistress, according to the Daily Mail. "I am giving up everything and eloping with Wang Qin. I feel ashamed and so am leaving without saying goodbye. I kneel down and beg forgiveness," he Tweeted.

Sina’s Weibo has nearly 8 times more users than Twitter. In 2010, Twitter had approximately 17 million users in the US, according to an Edison Research report called Twitter Usage in America 2010. Even if Twitter doubled in size this year, which is unlikely, its Twitter account numbers would be dwarfed by Sina accounts alone.

Amazon's Kindle is proving popular in China because it allows users to log on to banned websites.

Barack Obama spoke to a group of Chinese students tonight at a town hall in Shanghai. The meeting was streamed live, worldwide on the Whitehouse website and on the Whitehouse's Facebook page. He was asked a limited number of questions by the audience and one was about Twitter, which has been blocked in China since July.

Chinese security forces blanketed Tiananmen Square on Wednesday ahead of the 20th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, a day after Twitter and Hotmail Internet services in China were blocked.