By IANS,
Beijing : China should be cautious about “Internet mercenaries”, who are a group of people posting comments online to manipulate public opinion, a party official said.
Zhao Qizheng, spokesman for the annual session of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said here Wednesday that the influence of public opinion via the Internet is getting stronger as more and more people use it to exchange views and participate in political issues.
He said China had 457 million Internet users by the end of last year.
“We feel that Internet culture and environment is getting more complicated and there has emerged a group of people called ‘Internet mercenaries’,” Xinhua news agency quoted Zhao as saying.
He said that some of them, “backed by institutions for certain purposes”, disguise themselves as ordinary netizens and post comments in order to affect and divert public opinion, or even disturb government policy-making.
It needs attention from the government, and China lacks legislation in this regard, Zhao said.
China has been facing murmurs of dissent since the outbreak of massive unrest in the Arab world that have ousted the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt. The Tunisian uprising is referred to as the Jasmine revolution that led to 23-year-rule of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali coming to an end Jan 14. A similar uprising began Jan 25 in Egypt, leading to the fall of president Hosni Mubarak Feb 11 after 30 years in power.
The Chinese government is keeping an eye on the so-called Jasmine revolution and has censored searches on news and micro-blogging web sites for terms including “Egypt” and “jasmine”.