Forum joins forces with officials to fight corruption
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When it was launched in 2003, online forum 703804.com was intended as a tool to expose corrupt officials and injustice. And it worked.
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Huang Xuemin, standing, is one of the three founders of the 703804.com website . |
Today, the mission has not changed - and while they have discovered some ugly truths, it is the government that is hoping they continue to bring them to light.
The website, which is based in Wenzhou, an affluent factory city in Zhejiang province, has more than 800,000 registered users and is known locally as the "grassroots petition bureau".
Yet, it was not until 2005, when a taxi driver reported a senior police officer for running away after hitting his car, that the site started to draw widespread attention.
Cabbie Xie Haitao wrote that he used the license plate number to track down Shen Nuo, who refused to confess. However, the debate the post sparked led to a police investigation that proved Shen was at fault. The officer was warned and received a fine two months later.
Soon after, Xu Qiang, a senior official with the city's Internet security and control department, invited the staff at 703804.com to lunch.
"Xu seemed to be very nice and friendly," said Huang Xuemin, one of the three founders. "We chatted about how to run the website appropriately, and he mentioned that communication between the authorities and us was essential to helping the website to be a window for the public."
The meeting, he said, resulted in the forum agreeing to bar comments attacking political leaders above provincial level and provide the police with a "super administrator account" that would enable them to delete topics.
It was the start of a unique partnership in China, one that allows the website to continue to provide a platform for residents' complaints and officials the chance to speak directly with citizens.
"They rarely delete topics without informing us in advance. Most of time, they discuss it with us first," said co-founded Ye Zhe.
Although netizens were dubious of how the website would fare after teaming up with the government, the general response among regular users today is a positive one.
"I browse 703804 (slang for "chit-chat" in the local dialect) every day as soon as I get to my office," said Chen Yu, 24, who works at an export trade company. "I'm interested in all the news happening around me. Most of the topics my friends and I browse are related to corrupt officials or scandals, and all those complaints about unfair treatment.
"I hadn't realized the website was cooperating with the government because I still see exclusive stories on the forum," he added.
Another user Zheng Xiali, 32, said she "totally supports" 703804.com's cooperation with the government as she felt it "means the topics are accurate" and that officials can respond quicker to complaints.
Zhang Chunxiao, director of Wenzhou's network management department, said he has been in contact with the website's owners since he started his new job in 2007.
"Governments must offer serious guidance for websites so they can go move in a healthy direction," he said, "but they cannot be obstacles. That's why we didn't ask for access to delete topics, like the police have.
"We have the common purpose to serve the community and maintain the healthy development of the society," he added.
Wenzhou police official, Chen Junyu, declined to be interviewed about the partnership with 703804.com.
"Helping netizens with problems will build up the trust between the government, police and the forum," said Ye. "At the beginning, users posted radical topics, but today we have rational opinions that are less bias and impulsive.
"Many government departments check the forum regularly to see any complaints of their work. I also understand that information from the forum is compiled every day to present to senior officials."
Last year, when posters exposed officials buying downtown properties for below market value, the amount of netizens logging on crashed the servers. Ye said the first phone call he received was from a government department ordering him to fix the problem as soon as possible.
"They didn't want netizens to think the website had been blocked," said the co-founder.
"We regard the process of changes as the growing up of both the website and the government," added Ye.
Yu Guoming, director of the Renmin University of China's public opinion research institute, added: "About 80 or 90 percent of official corruption cases exposed on 703804 proved to be true, so it obviously the most convenient way to supervise governmental behavior."
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