Editor’s note: This translated article discusses the recent “permanent closure” of popular civilian-run corruption reporting websites in China, and the problems that can arise from an open and anonymous reporting platform.

In the last few years, the netizen population in China has not only grown in size but in courage too. In some extraordinary cases, “tips” posted online by Chinese netizens have ended up exposing major corruption scandals and propelled them to the forefront of Chinese news. Since the beginning of June this year, a new phenomenon has swept the Chinese web, as domestic civilian-run “corruption reporting” websites have taken off in China, and climbed in popularity at a rate that has left experts speechless.

Even so, due to the sensitive content hosted on these websites, until now they have had to "exist between the cracks". The most prominent website of this kind to date, called "I Bribed Someone" lasted for barely a month before being taken down. Many people are now beginning to wonder, if this type of civilian-run corruption reporting platform is only a short-lived fad, or if it represent a new epoch in civilian-government cooperation. Although many have praised this new platform for its “openness”, at the same time, others are quick to point out the obvious problems with such an open platform. Simply put, how does an open platform for reporting crimes safeguard itself from being exploited (more on that below)?

The beginning and end of corruption reporting websites
On June 15th, "I Bribed Chinese Web” (我贿赂了中文网), the earliest civilian-run corruption reporting website in China registered with the government and was approved two weeks later. On July 19th, "I Bribed Someone" (我行贿了) was approved and opened the next day. Within the last two months, purportedly there have been over 60 similar websites that have tried to register, but only four were approved by the government. The rest of these websites are still in a sort of “Internet purgatory”. Even for the few that were able to go online, running these websites has had its share of problems. “I Bribed Someone” experienced repeated hacking attempts, and often its servers were overloaded by visitors and the site would temporarily go down. But problems or not, the popularity of these websites was apparent right off the bat – less than a month after going online, “I Bribed Someone”, was getting 300,000 visits a day, and over 7,000 reports were filed.

But, these pioneers were perhaps a bit too optimistic about the long-term survival of such a controversial website model. Only 20 days after celebrating the website’s approval and re-opening, “I Bribed Someone” founder Xiao Xiaosheng said he had no choice but to declare it dead. On August 9th, he got on Weibo and told his followers that the site hand been canceled and was permanently shut down. But in reality, this might have been done to avoid "attracting negative attention" to the changes that were made to the website when it was re-opened. The overall “aggressiveness" of the website was reduced – the slogan in June that had once read: "Anonymously talk about your bribes, expose the true nature of corrupt officials" was changed to "Anonymously talk about your bribes, reveal the dangers of corruption". Also, the updated website now explicitly said: “We will not accept any form of report, violating personal privacy is strictly prohibited".

The fate of other civilian-run corruption reporting websites was the same. "I Bribed Chinese Web" reopened on August 7th as "Transparent China Web". It closed down again on August 8th. According to the website’s founder Qian Qiusui, when the “I Bribed Chinese Web” first went online, you were free to post whatever, but after it was reopened, keyword filtering, review of postings, etc. was mandatory. Even though both webmasters had expressed interest in working along side the corresponding discipline inspection committee government organs, in a sort of “amnesty” appeal, as of yet nothing has come of it.

Why reporting platforms can’t work  
Where does this new platform for corruption reporting go from here? Lin Zhe, expert in anti-corruption research, and professor at the Central Party School, believes that civilian-run platforms can effectively supplement government anti-corruption work (He notes that in recent years, more than half of China’s investigation and prosecution of corruption cases, were supported/supplemented by civilian reports). But there are obvious problems with the “open” nature of the civilian-run corruption-reporting platform that need to be addressed promptly:

Firstly, we need to understand that the way that these civilian-run websites gathered tips and the way that discipline inspection mechanisms handle cases is different; i.e. these websites do not possess the force of law.

Secondly, the worry that users will abuse the platform (to maliciously attack or slander others for personal gain) is clearly a huge problem that needs to be resolved immediately. Lin Zhe believes that to prevent this kind of behaviour, real names should be mandatorily used online and also when reporting.

Thirdly, the government’s disciplinary inspection organs worry that these sites will compromise their own investigations. When the discipline inspection organs investigate cases of corruption, often they rely on keeping things secret, and if these websites publish relevant information publicly in advance, it can very easily inadvertently alert the person being investigated and give people involved time to destroy evidence of corruption. Lin Zhe recommends that civilian-run corruption reporting websites should link up with local discipline inspection organs. (Zhuzhou and Nanjing have already done this: people can report tips by “speaking frankly” to the discipline inspection committee).

Fourthly, there are concerns that as these websites increase in popularity that they will become commercialised (for profit), and under the ploy of being “anti-corruption” the websites will profit off of ad revenue generated by web clicks. Even worse, people might be able to "pay to remove posts".
 

Source: gzdaily
 

Related links
Scaling the Firewall: How Chinese Netizens Take the Internet into Their Own Hands
China’s Netizens Lead the Anti-Corruption Fight
Cyber Revolution: What Are China’s Netizens Doing Online?

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Keywords: civilian corruption reporting website in China corruption in China anti-corruption in China netizens exposing corruption in China