Photos of 10 dead sparrows on a Chinese pavement that went viral on social media and drew a swift official response show how hard covering up a bird flu outbreak would be in the internet age.
China has won international praise for its transparency on the H7N9 strain, which has killed 14 people so far, in sharp contrast to criticism for trying to conceal the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) epidemic.
But analysts say the government has little choice, as technological change over the past decade and the proliferation of Twitter-like microblogs or weibos help drive greater official openness.
Mao Xiaojiong’s images, shot beneath a magnolia tree near her home in the city of Nanjing – which banned live poultry trading and culled birds after confirming H7N9 in people – were a case in point.
When she posted them on her weibo account earlier this month, asking authorities to investigate, they were reposted 20,000 times, racked up hundreds of thousands of views, and became a top topic on internet portal Sina.
Police whisked away one of the dead birds the same night to test for H7N9, and within two days authorities publicly ruled out the virus as a cause of death.