China's ‘Internet Police’ Joins Weibo and Other Sites to Make Online Presence

The Chinese "Internet Police" will be starting to reach out online by joining social media sites like Weibo to strengthen internet censorship in China.

The country's government assertively blocks many popular western sites including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and even Google's search engine and its Gmail service to avoid causing instability and challenge to the ruling Communist Party, Reuters reports.

But the same internet police that keep these sites forbidden will start joining social media sites like Weibo, China's answer to Twitter, to make an online presence, to get the citizens involved, to share what sites they are blocking, and other similar moves.

This new movement will commence on Monday as internet police in some 50 areas like Beijing, Shanghai, and Xuzhou in Jiangsu province will open accounts on these websites.

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security says that this will help ease concerns about internet gambling and pornography, and aims to "create a harmonious, cultured, clear and bright Internet."

"The Internet police are coming out to the front stage from behind the curtains, beginning regular open inspection and law enforcement efforts, raising the visibility of the police online, working hard to increase a joint feeling of public safety for the online community and satisfy the public," the ministry said.

The ministry's statement reads that fraud, defamation, gambling, and selling of drugs and guns have angered people and created a disarray in the internet. On the other hand, "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" also aggravate the ruling party, The Independent UK notes.

Some punishments for the crime will be dispensed accordingly for the sake of a "pure" internet. "Just like in the real world, law violations in cyberspace will not go unaccounted for," it said.

With the ministry's effort to curb the cybercrime in the country, it said that it has already deleted 758,000 pieces of "illegal and criminal information" from the Web and investigated more than 70,000 cybercrime cases since the start of 2015.