China’s social media site Sina Weibo confirmed on Sunday that an alleged official Facebook account has been launched on the microblogging platform.

Sina Weibo’s Vice President Cao Zenghui said through a post that social media giant Facebook opened an account on the site. However, the move was denied by an unnamed Facebook executive cited by a tech news portal. This made Cao retract the statement saying the California-based social media giant needed to be authorized before getting certified, reported Southern Metropolis Daily.

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The account, @Facebook, started to gain attention from Weibo users after showing up more than 10 days prior to the hasty denial of China’s popular social media website. However, Ping West, a tech news site, cited a Facebook executive denying allegations of them having an official account signed up on Sina Weibo.

Cao retracted his post saying the alleged Facebook account on Weibo lack verification and that he does not certify its authenticity. He also said that if another account would be found guilty of infringing copyrights, it would be accordingly dealt according to the microblogging site’s rules.

Cao also added that Weibo would be very cautious in verifying accounts signing up on the microblogging site. Meanwhile, Weibo global media expansion head Thomas Chen also initially confirmed that @Facebook was indeed the official account of the social media giant.

Another data analyst for Weibo, Zhang Hao, also got the news from Cao claiming the account was genuine. This made the report viral across the web. Cao also filed on Sunday a previous post confirming the authenticity of the said Facebook account.

Southern Metropolis Daily reported after conducting several checks that the Facebook account is still active.

Meanwhile, a report from Beijing Youth Daily last July said Facebook plans to open a China-based office after renting a space in Beijing’s Fortune Financial Center. The paper cited a source who wished to be unnamed as the matter has been held private in nature.

TagsCao Zenghui, Southern Metropolis Daily, Ping West