China orders police to use social networks

THE GLORIOUS PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA has ordered its police forces to begin using social networking in order to promote law enforcement transparency.

"Internet users are one of the major groups of our society and they are not satisfied," said Huang Ming, vice-minister of public security, on the Beijing Public Security Bureau microblog. "Public security microblogging should gradually cross the country to each province and city and form the backbone of public security."

The move is a major policy change in a country that has been averse to the open expression of social media. In 2009 it blocked Twitter and Facebook. Users were forced to use virtual private networks and proxy servers to access the web sites, but both now appear available without recourse to such methods. Meanwhile, China's equivalents of these, Weibo and Renren, have been tightly regulated to ensure that dissenting views are not propagated.

Social media have been popular means through which to report government corruption and police brutality in China, particularly given that many of the news agencies in the country are state-run and obviously turn a blind eye to certain practices.

One of the biggest issues that incited outrage amongst internet users recently was an incident of a Chinese tourist being dragged from his hotel room and beaten by security staff, according to French news agency AFP.

It is not surprising then that China wants to improve its image by embracing the same media that are pointing out its shortcomings. It aims to "dispel misunderstandings", but in many ways that boils down to promoting a positive image of itself or, in other words, propaganda.

In response to the government's request, close to 5,000 officers began using over 4,000 microblogging accounts in the country, marking one of the biggest government sanctioned internet initiatives in China to date. µ