The talk show host has joined the Chinese social network, which has been described as a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook, announcing the news to her Twitter followers on Monday.

"I'm on Weibo! It's the Twitter of China!" DeGeneres tweeted, before cheekily adding that she and her wife, Australian actress Portia de Rossi, would be sure to abide by the social network's strict rules.

"I promise not to say anything to offend the Chinese government," she said. "So does my roommate, Portia."

I’m on Weibo! It’s the Twitter of China! I promise not to say anything to offend the Chinese government. So does my roommate, Portia.— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) April 20, 2015

DeGeneres' talk show The Ellen Show started airing in China at the start of last year.

It is distributed by Sohu Video, a Chinese online video streaming service.

The episodes are available to Chinese viewers 48 hours after they air in the US.

While DeGeneres often communicates with her fans over Facebook and Twitter, both of these social media services are banned in China.

Weibo was launched in 2009, in response to the mass closure of other Chinese microblogging services following the Urumqi riots.

In the West, the social network is known - and often criticised - for its censorship.

Posts on the service are manually checked by moderators in line with China's internet censorship policy, and posts which contain certain "blacklisted" words are deleted.

DeGeneres (who tweets @TheEllenShow) is the ninth most followed user on Twitter, with more than 42 million followers.

The comedian momentarily crashed Twitter while hosting the 2014 Academy Awards after she tweeted a star-studded selfie featuring nominees Bradley Cooper, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Lupita Nyong'o, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.