Snooping Chinese "chitchat" site unleashes "human flesh search engines" on corrupt govt officials

Beijing, Aug. 1 (ANI): Chinese government officials playing online games at work or abusing public funds need to be more cautious now, as a popular website is exposing their duplicity to higher authorities.

Recently, an investigation officer, who drove a police car to a square to walk his dogs in Zhejiang province, was exposed and sacked.

Another government employee was fired for playing games online during work hours.

All the clues came from a website, www.703804.com, which gets over a million clicks every day, Xinhua reports.

"703804 means chitchat in our accent. We opened the platform in 2004 for the public to voice complaints and expose dishonesty," said founder Ye Shao.

"People are not only talking on the Internet about rising water prices or the noisy karaoke bars. They have played an important role in exposing corruption cases as the government is more likely to listen our voices online," he added.

The website has prompted Internet vigilante hunts, known as "human flesh search engines," to track a credit bank official who fled after embezzling public funds in 2006.

"Police arrested the suspect based on our evidence," Ye said. "Since then the Wenzhou procuratorate has made it a rule to monitor the website for new cases."

In 2008, a post exposed officials who abused public funds on trips to Las Vegas and Niagara Falls.

The photos of documents and receipts left on a subway in Shanghai showed officials from Wenzhou spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on overseas sightseeing tours disguised as study trips.

The story was picked up by other websites, leading to the investigation to and punishment of the officials involved.

Public security officials in Wenzhou routinely visit "703804" when they start work every day.

"We must know what problems are emerging in the community and solve them quickly, or higher officials will criticize us," said a police officer. (ANI)