Chinese Comments Flood Obama's Google+

Exuberant, thankful comments are flooding onto President Obama's Google+ page -- in Chinese.

The vast majority of comments on a recent posting on President Obama's official Google+ page are written in Chinese characters. Some are simply saying hello (according to other commenters in the thread) and some are writing in English.

"I like it. this is my first voice on google+. Thanks for google" is one example of how, through mobile devices, Chinese residents can get around the Great Firewall.

Another commenter mentions a specific lawyer who he says is being held by the Chinese government, pointing toward China's human rights record. That commenter wrote in both Chinese and English, garnering about 250 "pluses" on the thread that includes "to implore the government of your country to call for the freedom of the blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng... ."

Some commenters see the flood of comments as spam, while others are asking Google to provide an auto-translate feature for the social platform -- an intriguing idea. Right now Google Translate supports English, French and Spanish.

Jokes about China's holding a great deal of American debt abound, as does some pushback from English-language posters, wanting the firehose of comments in Chinese characters to be reduced to a trickle.

Even more defenders of the Chinese commenters say the comments are mostly harmless enthusiasm around being able to access a social networking site.

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