Yang Dacai

"I was amazed to see so many Internet users retweeted my post to their fans," he said. "It seemed like all of a sudden, everyone in China knew about it."

The fast and widespread availability of Weibo information has made Zhou a household name and anti-corruption warrior. His case was soon accepted by discipline inspection departments and his boss was finally punished. "Though the punishment is a bit light for his crime, I am content with the result," said Zhou. "Weibo has provided a good platform for every one to fight corruption and we must make good use of it."

Threat to corrupt officials

Like Zhou, Lin Zhe is also optimistic about the future of fighting corruption through microblogs. "The greatest advantage of microblogging is that it can expose corruption, and these clues can be seen by millions of other microbloggers and related to anti-corruption authorities," said the professor of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee to China Economic Weekly.

According to Lin, disclosing corruption information on microblogs is convenient and the costs are small. "Traditionally, people needed much more time and higher costs to send their information to the related departments," said Lin. "But now, information posted on microblogs spreads very quickly and can easily be seen by the departments against corruption."

Experts believe that microblogs have now become a warning bell for officials to watch their behavior. "Microblogs are now like eyes watching officials everywhere, urging them to stay away from corruption," said Ye Qing, Deputy Director of Hubei Provincial Bureau of Statistics, who is also a famous microblogger on Sina Weibo.

Under the close watch of microbloggers nationwide, officials began to pay more attention to their lifestyles and speeches. "Some of them even dare not wear expensive designer watches or clothes," said Zhang Zhenliang, a scholar on governance microblog studies.

In August 2012, Yang Dacai, former head of the Work Safety Administration of northwest China's Shaanxi Province grinned inappropriately at the scene of a fatal car crash that killed 36 people. When a photo capturing the moment was put on Weibo, angry microbloggers went digging through Yang's past and consequently found numerous photos online of him wearing luxury watches and clothing. They voiced their doubts that Yang could afford the items with his official's salary, and one month later, he was put under investigation.

Ye said that while microblogs can provide valuable information, it is up to anti-corruption departments such as the CPC Central Commissions for Discipline Inspection to play a more major role in the process. 

A need for new laws 

As microblogging is an easy-access platform where anyone can speak their mind, many experts worry that microblogging websites may also be rife with rumors, and unchecked information may hurt innocent people.

In early January, a microblog post asserting that a female director of China Petrochemical Corp. received sex bribes appeared on the Internet along with a photo. The post was widely retweeted, inciting much discussion by Internet users. But later, the photo proved to have nothing to do with the director. Though she sued the microblogger and the website, the rumor had already damaged her reputation and family.

"There should be a mechanism that rewards those who report genuine corruption information and punishes those who produce rumors," said Ye, adding that the lasting damage caused by rumors cannot be totally eliminated in the long term.

Sina Weibo and some other big microblog websites also have a reporting system where Internet users can easily report false information or rumors to website administrators. When information is proven false, it can be deleted. But such information can be viewed many times before being deleted.

"Actually, those who spread rumors on microblogs can be punished," said Zhou. "People need to register their real name on the websites before they can blog. They can be sued [for false information]."

But Li Manchun, Director of the Center of Clean Governance and Rule of Law of Central South University, thinks it is not enough. According to him, related departments should make more efforts to collect information on various microblog websites to expand the influence of microblogs in fighting corruption and get more whistleblowing from Internet users; on the other hand, effective laws and regulations should be issued to regulate people who publish information on microblogs.

"Laws should be made to prevent people from abusing microblogs," he said. CA