Weibo Blocks HBO Host John Oliver Over Xi Comments

A popular mainland social media site is censoring discussion of "Last Week Tonight" and its HBO host John Oliver after he mocked President Xi Jinping, his apparent sensitivity about being compared to Winnie the Pooh and his country's crackdown on human rights.

Attempts to send posts with either the terms "John Oliver" or "Last Week Tonight" on Weibo microblog on Friday were met with failure messages saying "the content contains information that violates relevant laws and regulations".

Oliver's show on Sunday made satirical references to Xi and the way that mainland internet users often joke that he resembles Winnie the Pooh.

The show also referred to the mainland's internment of hundreds of thousands of members of the Muslim Uighur minority groups in political indoctrination camps .

Oliver called Xi "the man who is now emperor for life", referring to the elimination of the presidential term limits.

On YouTube, the video of the 20-minute segment was viewed more than 3.3 million times by on Friday. (AP)