{"id":7014,"date":"2016-05-15T07:23:30","date_gmt":"2016-05-15T11:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=7014"},"modified":"2016-05-16T07:30:20","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T11:30:20","slug":"china-launches-rumor-busting-website-to-enforce-party-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/china-launches-rumor-busting-website-to-enforce-party-line","title":{"rendered":"China Launches ‘Rumor-Busting’ Website to Enforce Party Line"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Police

Police check the ID cards of netizens at an Internet cafe in Shandong province, July 31, 2013. ImagineChina<\/p><\/div>\n

China’s police force has launched a whistleblower website targeting people who spread \u201crumors\u201d online in a further bid to control what the country’s 700 million internet users see and post online.<\/p>\n

The ministry of public security and the Twitter-like social media platform Sina Weibo launched the National Platform to Refute Rumors to garner “tip-offs” from those wishing to report “false” online information, official media reported.<\/p>\n

Anyone found “spreading rumors” on Sina Weibo will have their accounts terminated and may be investigated by police, according to the Global Times<\/i>, which has close ties to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n

Activists said the website is aimed at ensuring that ordinary citizens don’t use social media to challenge the official version of events.<\/p>\n

“Historically, the police just want to suppress the truth and persecute any organizations that support democracy and freedom of speech,” Sichuan-based activist Huang Qi, who founded the Tianwang rights website, told RFA.<\/p>\n

“It’s ridiculous to imagine that such an evil organization would suddenly turn into a defender of the truth; it will just turn into a laughing stock,” he said.<\/p>\n

A netizen who gave only a nickname, Xiao Biao, agreed, blaming frequent online rumors on a lack of press freedom in China.<\/p>\n

“What they are doing is ridiculous; it’s an attempt to suppress and cover up information,” he said. “In a country with freedom of speech and freedom of the press, you would never get so many rumors flying about in the first place.”<\/p>\n

“These rumors spring from the absolute power of the government, which has suppressed freedom of speech and of the press,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Positive and healthy\u2019 internet<\/b><\/p>\n

The new website, which follows a campaign by President Xi Jinping for a “positive and healthy” internet, isn’t the first collaboration between police and major internet service providers.<\/p>\n

Last year, Beijing announced it would station specialist police officers in major internet companies to help protect against hacker attacks, “violent terrorist information,” fraud and data theft, pornography and gambling.<\/p>\n

But police have also targeted people who used social media to send out unofficial and unedited information about breaking news stories.<\/p>\n

Last August, authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui jailed veteran activist Shen Liangqing on public order charges after he retweeted a social media post about the devastating chemical warehouse explosions in Tianjin.<\/p>\n

Shen, a former state-prosecutor-turned-whistle-blower who wrote a book detailing abuses under the ruling party’s internal disciplinary regime, was handed a nine-day administrative sentence by police in the provincial capital Hefei.<\/p>\n

And China’s draconian internet agency, the Cyberspace Administration, said it suspended more than 360 social media accounts after the blasts rocked Tianjin.<\/p>\n

Last October, three people in the eastern province of Shandong were also jailed briefly for sending out tweets about an explosion at a chemical factory near their homes in Zibo city that wasn’t reported by the country’s tightly controlled media.<\/p>\n

The three were accused of sending out tweets saying that there had been a large explosion at the Zibo Dongda Chemical Industries after local residents heard a loud blast on Tuesday evening, in the absence of any official explanation for the blasts.<\/p>\n

Last year, police said they had arrested more than 15,000 people in recent year for cyber crimes.<\/p>\n

Reported by Xin Lin for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.sampsoniaway.org\/fearless-ink\/2016\/05\/13\/harry-wu-an-amazing-survivor\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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