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Party paper stresses responsible online citizenship

Xinhua, March 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

The People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China (CPC), urged Internet companies and influential social media users to take responsibility in safeguarding a "clean, healthy and dynamic" cyberspace on Tuesday.

The paper said in an editorial that "collective life" online is based on free choice by Internet users and full of varied content and information.

It is a crucial time for Chinese Internet regulators to set rules, the paper said, and it is especially important to advocate responsible citizenship among "inventors, organizers and leaders" on the Internet such as online platform developers, content providers and active social media users.

According to the editorial, e-commerce companies should clear counterfeit goods from their platforms and search engines should not promote bidding rank. It also said it is illegal for websites to ignore the spread of false and pornographic information.

It urged content providers, including influential individual users, to follow media ethics and to not lose their principles in the pursuit of clicks and subscribers.

China had 648 million Internet users by the end of 2014. The large online market comes with huge responsibilities, the article said.

It warned that those who only focus on temporary and trivial gains may damage their reputations and lose great opportunities to develop. Endi