According to a Washington Post investigation, dozens of cities in Guangdong, Sichuan, Yunnan, Hunan, Shaanxi, Shandong and Jiangsu provinces, as well as Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, have announced plans so far this year to cut back on government websites, social media accounts and smartphone applications.
One recent example is the southern metropolis of Shenzhen's Longgang district, which announced in the first week of May that it would shut down web services for its land supervision bureau and state-owned assets bureau after the two agencies were merged into other agencies.
The same week, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region shut down the website and social media accounts of its Sugar Industry Development Office, which had been absorbed into the Guangxi Development and Reform Commission, the region's top economic planning agency.
On April 28, the city of Bazhong in Sichuan Province announced that it would close the websites and social media accounts of its Rural Revitalization Bureau, Financial Work Bureau, and Government Service and Public Resources Service Center because they had been merged into other government agencies.
Other institutions that have withdrawn from the internet include the Veterans' Affairs Bureau of Wuhua District, Kunming; the Market Supervision Bureau of Yuhua District, Changsha; Zhenxing Street, Jinan; the Culture, Tourism and Sports Bureau of Weiyang District, Xi'an; the Judicial Bureau of Linwei District, Weinan City, Shaanxi Province; and the Urban Management Bureau of Jiangning District, Nanjing.
The offices will continue to exist, but their websites, social media accounts and smartphone apps will be absorbed into higher-level city departments, according to the announcement.
The streamlining effort comes less than six months after the Cyberspace Administration of China issued a directive ordering local governments to consolidate “similar and overlapping functions” after many online platforms were deemed useless or “zombies” controlled by trolls.
A Shenzhen official who works on several city-run web platforms said the eager pursuit of online interactions had put “tremendous stress on field staff”.
“After I post content on my account, I have to get help from my colleagues and friends to get clicks. I also ask my parents and grandparents for help,” she said with a laugh, adding that integration is “definitely necessary.”
“A lot of people are excited about the integration efforts and hope that one day we won't have to sit and post and click on the same content all day,” she said.
Ma Liming, an associate professor at Jinan University's School of Journalism and Communication, expressed a similar view in an interview with Chinese media earlier this week.
“The situation has become so complicated that even district-level governments need to have their own government-related new media platforms,” Ma told Shaanxi province's official news portal cnwest.com.
“Maintaining these zombie accounts is becoming a burden for grassroots staff who don't have a media background.
“On the other hand, if government information services require following many accounts, is this really convenient or beneficial for citizens?”
Exacerbating the situation are cuts to local government staff, forcing many to lay off contract workers responsible for non-core tasks such as updating websites and social media accounts.
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Why China's disgruntled young workers identify with South Korea's pink cartoon beaver
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The Chinese government's eagerness to control the country's internet began in November 2009, when the Yunnan provincial propaganda department began using the microblogging platform Weibo to respond to public concerns about mass protests sparked by a sudden rise in rents at a wholesale market in the provincial capital, Kunming.
Local government websites and social media accounts have grown rapidly in popularity, especially since China's cabinet, the State Council, issued an official directive in 2013 recognizing that these platforms could help make government more transparent and trustworthy.
According to China's official internet development report released on March 26, more than 146,000 government agencies had officially participated on China's social media platforms as of the end of last year.
Some government agencies, such as the Communist Party's top security organ, the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, and the Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission, have successfully created popular social media accounts, using internet slang, cartoons and short videos to get their messages across.
But many local government accounts have been left abandoned, and some have been taken over by hackers and internet trolls.
The Weibo account of the urban management team of Wuhan's Wuli Street was found to have published numerous posts soliciting surrogacy and prostitution between 2017 and 2019. The local government did not respond until 2021, saying the account had been hacked by criminals.
