"Earth Hour 2011" is an international activity that started on March 26th. Many netizens in Weibo have prepared well for their contribution to our earth. They make a promise to protect our environment by consuming less energy.
Come to Weibo and Make your Promise!
In order to respond to the call of protecting our earth, the famous Chinese musical group Yu Quan made a popular song to cheer us up. It's a very beautiful song, and it shows how Chinese people have made their effort to protect the earth. I am deeply moved by people's good will for our planet. This year, many natural disasters have happened around us: earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, etc. People are suffering from natural disasters which helps them realize they are consuming too much energy. "Earth Hour" is meaningful because it inspires people all around the world to appreciate that earth is our home, and it is our responsibility to protect it. As the slogan says: Contribution to an hour, Save the earth for one-hundred years!
Here is the beautiful song sang by Yu Quan "Turn Off the Light"
Weibo--the most popular Chinese "Twitter"--has shown its great potential to solve criminal cases. It has such a great power that the Chinese police have started their official police micro blog to communicate with netizens who could provide clues to criminal cases or report criminal activities. A news article from China Daily today presents the power of Weibo to allow Chinese police and citizens to interact, and it also gives us a concrete example that shows how netizens have helped the police in Guangdong province fight against criminals. Also, there is a video below from YouTube talking about how Weibo had helped parents find their abducted kids in China (child trafficking has become a severe social problem in China these years).
Micro blogs help crack cases By Zhang Yan and Cao Yin (China Daily) Updated: 2011-03-22 07:54
GUANGZHOU - Thirty criminal cases and more than 300 misdemeanor cases have been resolved with the help of micro blogs since becoming the subjects of investigations by public security authorities one year ago in South China's Guangdong province, a senior local police officer said.
The cases concerned crimes such as intentional injury, robbery, theft and fraud, rape, and child trafficking, said Liu Bo, head of the network operation department under the Guangdong provincial public security department.
Since March 2010, when police in Zhaoqing city started the first official police micro blog in Guangdong, 72 police micro blogs have been opened on sina.com, qq.com and the department's official website, gdga.gov.cn.
"In the beginning, we had tried to use new media to release public security information to interact and communicate with the public," Liu said, adding that they didn't project the likely results of their decision.
Those grew to conspicuous dimensions by late February, about a year after the micro blogs had been started. By then, the sites had attracted more than 1 million postings of messages and comments and more than 170,000 fans, according to the department's statistics.
Most of the messages left by netizens asked for advice about various laws and regulations; a small number sought help or provided clues. And a mere handful reported violations of discipline by police officers.
"They thought that it's a direct, convenient and quick way to communicate with us," Liu said.
The police, meanwhile, try to make timely releases of information that pertain to case developments and crime tips. They also use the blogs to refute rumors, he said.
According to Liu, the police receive more than 1,400 messages on the micro blogs a day. After sorting them out, they make some 400 to 500 responses, from which have resulted about 100 clues pertaining to criminal crimes.
"After receiving the crime reports and after a preliminary identification and verification, we reported the clues to the relevant departments, including the criminal investigation, economic investigation, public order and drug enforcement departments," he said.
"The relevant department will then follow up on the clues and begin to investigate the cases," Liu added. "And they will respond to informants soon and keep in regular touch with them."
On May 13, 2010, a netizen, who goes by the name Army Brother, claimed on a police micro blog that a large number of detonators and explosives were hidden in a shop near a kindergarten in the Baiyun district of Guangzhou, the provincial capital.
After noticing the report, the blog's operator relayed the information to the Guangzhou police, who rushed to the scene and discovered 5,400 electrical detonators, 31.2 kilograms of explosives and 150 meter of fuse in the shop. As it turned out, the bomb paraphernalia had been stored there by a hydropower engineering company.
Liu said even though micro blogs have played an important role in solving crimes, they are not useful in all circumstances.
"If you were in bad need of help, or witnessed a crime, please make a report by dialing 110," he said.
"And if you want to make a report that includes photos or tape or video recordings, please get in touch with us directly by e-mail or by writing a letter, instead of writing on a micro blog. That will help to protect the privacy of the parties involved."
"Micro blogs have disadvantages as well," said Wu Ming'an, a law professor at China University of Political Science and Law.
"They might allow for invasions of privacy or provide a means of spreading fake information or even slander."
China Daily
Chinese Blog Reunited Parents with Abducted Children
After I talked about the salt crisis and the Chinese salt rumor going around these days, a news article was reported on China Daily today about a netizen who was arrested by local police for spreading salt rumors. It's meaningful news because we see the Chinese police is making progress in cracking down on rumors that cause unnecessary panic among Chinese citizens. The news also emphasizes that the government should provide accurate and accessible information to citizens, so that citizens can stop believing rumors. Here is the news:
Netizen in custody for spreading salt rumors
By Yu Ran (China Daily) Updated: 2011-03-22 07:54
SHANGHAI - A netizen surnamed Chen in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, was held in custody for 10 days and fined 500 yuan ($76) by local police on Sunday for spreading salt rumors online last Tuesday.
Working at a computer company, the 31-year-old man posted a hoax on a local online forum, saying that the radiation leaked from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan had polluted the sea off the coast of eastern Shandong province. He encouraged people to store salt and dried kelp. He also said they should try to avoid eating seafood for a year.
The post spread rapidly on the Internet and caused local residents to panic, according to the police.
Chen said he received the false information when chatting with a friend online.
In Shanghai, the local police said on Friday last week that two men will be faced with prosecution for disseminating rumors that said the city will be severely contaminated by the nuclear leak in Japan, Shanghai-based news portal Xinmin.cn reported.
Among the other causes of the panicked purchases of salt were rumors contending that eating iodized salt could prevent people from being harmed by radiation leaked from a Japanese nuclear plant.
Supermarket shelves in places like Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangxi and Sichuan provinces and in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai were nearly devoid of salt by Thursday.
However, by Saturday last week, some consumers who had realized that the hoarding of salt would not be useful in countering a leak of nuclear radiation had started to return to supermarkets to try to get their money back.
A university professor believes insufficient releases of reliable and timely information by the government also contributed to panicked purchases of salt in China.
"The panic perhaps could have been avoided if the government had released enough reliable information in response to the recent series of disasters in Japan," said Qiu Liping, a professor in the sociology department at Shanghai University.
He added that food safety is perhaps the largest concern in China at present.
A related rumor spread on the Internet on Sunday said that a man from Cixi, in Zhejiang province, died from eating too much iodized salt. Cixi authorities proved that story to be false.
"The public feels anxious because it doesn't receive enough scientific knowledge from day to day," said Qiu.
Qiu said the elderly and the middle-aged were among those most likely to buy salt in response to the rumors. Many of them had picked up the false information from gossip.
"I got my earthquake fears from another old lady in the market, who made me believe that Shanghai will be severely affected soon," said Lu Huizhen, an 82-year-old local resident who was stopped by her daughter from taking all her savings out from a bank and moving inland.
"The government should find a good way to release accurate and accessible information after emergencies," Qiu said. "This will ensure citizens believe the authorized information instead of rumors."
"Stop the rumors of salt
stop transferring rumors, stop believing rumors, start from me!"
A heated discussion about salt purchases is spreading on Weibo. A few days ago, the Japanese nuclear power plant exploded and released a large amount of nuclear radiation; the radiation scared a lot of Chinese citizens. After this, a rumor spread claiming that iodized salt could prevent the effects of nuclear radiation, so more and more Chinese people rushed to purchase salt which eventually led to a serious shortage of salt in the market. Fortunately, the rumors had been quickly detected by the government, and some local Chinese officials announced that the Japanese nuclear radiation would not affect people's health. But today there are still many Chinese citizens anxious to buy salt and store it at home.
A netizen on Weibo talked about his experience in Japan after the nuclear explosion. He said he had visited several super markets and wanted to see if the salt had been sold out. To his surprise, the owner of the market told him that there were not many Japanese buying salt, but most of his salt was sold to Chinese who lived there. A question arose in Weibo: are the Chinese too scared of death? Even the Japanese are not that scared! Isn't it exaggerated? Some experts tried to explain such phenomenon in China. They said that many Chinese are scared of the nuclear radiation because they are not educated enough, so they tend to believe the rumors easily. Many peddlers are taking advantage of people's worry about the radiation and disseminating rumors so that they can earn a lot from the salt industry. China has a big population, and people are connected, so the negative feelings easily spread and influence others around them; in the end, it becomes the fear of a larger group of people. The influence is especially great in rural areas where people are less educated.
According to Sina micro-blogging, 90% of Weibo netizens have behaved calm and remained sane to the panic purchase of salt. But the shortage of salt is still severe in China today. Due to the situation, the Corporation of National Salt Industry made an announcement through its official Weibo that the company is fully capable of protecting the steady supply of salt to all Chinese citizens.
Since 2009, "Weibo"--the Chinese twitter--has become a super star on China's network. As the first website to launch "Weibo", Sina micro-blogging is the most popular platform for sharing information among Chinese netizens. I didn't get to know about Weibo until 2010, since I was a nerd. But micro-blogging is becoming so popular in China that whenever I visited Chinese websites or read online news, I could not escape the word "Weibo." Everyday, my friends in China would ask me "Did you weibo today?" When I visited Chinese websites, I was surprised to see that the netizens had already voted for the queen of Weibo online. Her name is Chen Yao, and she happens to be one of my favorite Chinese actresses. I am so impressed by Weibo's popularity in China today.
I started playing Weibo at the end of 2010 when I purchased my first Ipod touch, and I fell in love with it immediately. I was amazed by its rich information and the personalized environment where I can choose to follow whoever I am interested in. I found many of my friends on Weibo, and I followed some celebrities who I admire. There is no doubt that the Chinese version of Twitter has been a success in this land, and surprisingly, it had endowed a uniqueness in China that can't be found on twitter in the U.S. which is the great power of connection. I would love to discuss Weibo's power in my future posts. But now, I would like to share a video that gives us a common sense of Chinese micro-blogging's popularity and great social influence:
