top websites investigate, rectify their content
自查自纠
DoNews reports the announcement of the first results from the self-censoring clean-up campaign undertaken by 14 Chinese major portals. The movement is referred to by the phrase above, zicha zijiu, lit. self-investigate, self-rectify. The 14 Beijing-based portals include Sina.com, Sohu.com, Netease, Tom.com, Qianlong.com, and Yahoo’s China portal. On April 17, 11 of these released more information on their efforts.
Beginning on April 6, for instance, Qianlong conducted educational training sessions for its entire staff, regarding the correct understanding of the current circumstances and “strengthening the sense of social responsibility” for morally correct web content. On April 7, each group of leaders and each staff member undertook the first round of correction and rectification of inappropriate news content on web pages for which each was responsible. By April 13, Qianlong had shut down and deleted 3 suspicious BBS forums, 800 suspicious articles, 3174 suspicious photos, and 134 comments.
For Sina’s part, it got rid of 15 forums, 159 articles, and over 130,000 forum comments, revised the language of over 20 headlines, and increased monitoring of blogs and news discussion forums.