Chinese government departments ordered to sharpen up on social media
- State Council issues directive as part of efforts to sharpen government’s image and target younger citizens more effectively
China’s cabinet has warned government departments to clean up their social media image amid a drive to bolster the government’s online presence to help reach tech-savvy young people who get their information from smartphones.
The State Council issued the guidelines late on Thursday saying that authorities’ social media presence needed more regulation and vowed to clean up dormant “zombie” accounts and “shocking” comment from official channels.
“This has a negative impact on the image and the public trust in the government,” the cabinet said on its website.
Government bodies have been pushing into social media as a way to reach younger people, who get most information from platforms like Tencent’s messaging app WeChat, microblog platform Weibo or newer services such as news aggregator Toutiao.
The government is also trying to get a tighter grip on the dissemination of information to the public, and has also been tightening regulations on financial news reporting and reining in online bloggers and livestreamers.