Nanjing officials deserve credit for stopping false rumor

On July 5, a micro blog said that a 9-year-old child in Nanjing, Jiangsu province,  was not able to gokept out of to school for not owning a hukou. The official micro blog account of the Nanjing Bureau of Publicity quickly confirmed the information was false and successfully persuaded the releasing account-holder who made the micro blog post to delete that micro blog it. Local governments should be active combatingactively combat rumors in the information age, says an article on Xinhua Daily Telegraph. Excerpts:

155 One hundred fifty-five minutes after a micro blog post containing with negative information appeared, local publicity officials of Nanjing, Jiangsu province, confirmed that the information was false, and contacted the releasing account-holder, which who deleted the information im-mediately.

We live in an Internet society where everyone has the ability to release information; . that That may bring convenience, but the uncontrolled information can also harm social stability, even state security.

The rRumors that are spread online can cause huge resultshave huge consequences if not dealt with in time. In After the 2010 earthquake that hit Ja-pan, a rumor about the sea being becoming polluted caused had many people rushing to buy salt. T; the passing past year also saw many people protest against local construction for not understanding their its environmental effects. All these exposed showed that officials still have much to learn in about combating rumors.

Therefore Nanjing officials are therefore especially praiseworthy for having verifiedverifying and deleted deleting one a rumor within 155 minutes. We owe this victory, first of all, to the official micro blog informant system, founded in June this year. By employing professional personnel members to monitor micro blogs and other websites, the Nanjing officials make made it possible to verify and delete the rumor before it is was widely spread.

The victory over rumors would also be impossible without coordination of between other officials, who quickly located the rumor source and confirmed the information was false because “no such child was found in real life,”, so the releasing account-holder deleted the micro blog post on his own volition.

The Nanjing officials have done a good job by saving the local government’s image. From their experience,s we can learn that local governments can be more confident and active in combating the rumors spread on-line, so as to better promote government’s image in the information age.