BEIJING (AP) — The New York Times started a Chinese-language website Thursday, generating so much interest in China that thousands of followers flocked to two of its microblogs accounts. Both were apparently taken offline for several hours, but it was not clear if government interference was the reason.

The Times’ accounts on microblog sites hosted by two popular Chinese web portals were offline Thursday morning, said Craig Smith, the paper’s China managing director. “We are seeking to clarify the situation with those accounts,” said Smith, adding that the Chinese site cn.nytimes.com has not been affected and continued to receive “strong traffic.”