BEIJING - Microblogs, known as "weibo" in Chinese, can be beneficial and a platform to express public opinion if legal and moral restraint is applied, said an expert in Friday's People's Daily newspaper.

Yu Guoming, a professor at the School of Journalism of Renmin University of China, told the newspaper that the general rules of law and morality should not be violated no matter on the Internet or in the "real" world.

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Yu's remarks come in response to concerns that frivolous information or saturation of personal complaints become overly prevalent and make microblogs a vulgar medium that undercuts the benefits of expressing public opinion.

"Vulgarity cannot represent the essence of weibo," Yu said, noting that content with emotional expression could just reflect the personal characteristics of the microblog users.

Yu hopes the public will show tolerance to the development of microblogs, according to the newspaper.

"As long as the general rules of law and morality are applied, weibo can play its role to promote the expression of public opinions," he said.

Microblogs, with their limitation of 140 characters, can easily and rapidly spread via the Internet, and in this way provide timely, people-to people communication interactively, he said.

New figures show that about 140 million people have signed up for accounts at weibo.com. Media giant Sina, which owns weibo.com, estimates that the site will have 200 million registered users by the end of this year.