A new study found that Chinese microbloggers are “happier” and write “less political” messages on their profiles than Westerners, the Telegraph reported.

Computer scientists at the Delft University of Technology in Holland and the Shanghai Jiaotong University, one of China’s toppest universities, studied 46 million messages posted on Twitter and Sina Weibo (pronounced way-bore), the biggest microblogging platform in China, the paper said.

The study found that 79 percent of the messages posted on Sina Weibo were expressing positive sentiments, compared to 71 percent on Twitter, the paper said.

When discussing people or locations, Sina Weibo users became even more positive while Twitter users were more negative, the paper said.

Only 3 percent of posts on Sina Weibo referred to “organizations”, whereas 16 percent on twitter, which the study argued reflecting the preference of Chinese users for avoiding mentioning large groups such as political parties, it said.

The study said the Chinese social media behavior is more collectivistic in culture because the topics and concepts Sina Weibo users discuss are broader that Twitter users, the paper said.

Western users of social media tend to retweet information faster than Chinese users and share more links while using hashtags, the paper said.

It cited the professors behind the study as saying that this partly reflects the greater eagerness and individualism of Twitter users to see their post appear in public discussion.

Sina Weibo has introduced new punishments in May for users who post messages violating principles of the Chinese constitution.

Microblogging operators were demanded to ensure that their users are registered with their real names since March.