Weibo’s New Social App Oasis Involved in Plagiarism of Logo Design

Just as followers begin to download Weibo’s new app Oasis, the app’s logo has apparently been plagiarized.

SEE ALSO: Sina Weibo Launches New Social Media Platform Oasis

Oasis is a new social app launched by Sina Weibo, the biggest microblogging platform in China. The features and user interface resemble both Instagram and Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media and e-commerce platform. The app has been undergoing internal testing since last week. On September 3, Oasis climbed into the top three of the App Store’s free app charts.

On the following day, a netizen pointed out that the logo of the app is quite similar to the design for the Ulju Mountain Film Festival in 2015 by famous Korean graphic design studio fnt. Wang Gaofei, CEO of Weibo then commented under the post saying, “we found it, the app has already been taken down.”

As soon as the alleged plagiarism became public, the official Weibo account of Oasis posted an apology as follows:

We just learned that someone posted about the similarity of design between Oasis and the design of a Korean design team. First of all, we’d like to apologize to the designer! We would also like to apologize to all friends who care about us. Special thanks to the Weibo user who pointed this out.

At the same time, we will explain the design to you as follows: Previously, our designers did take similar design elements of online public materials. These basic elements include desert, the sun, cactus, etc. These elements are consistent with our main design concept: in the current social network, everyone is like a cactus in the desert, lonely and full of thorns. We need a refreshing oasis.

Oasis has been temporarily removed from the app store for copyright protection. In the meantime, we have initiated an internal review of the design process, and we have been contacting relevant design parties to resolve any copyright issues.

In the current internal testing phase, we lack proper preparation and management, and all relevant functions and services need to be improved. I hope that everyone will continue to inspect us and help Oasis grow.