Chinese consumers use social media to protect rights

Chinese consumers are increasingly using social media platforms to protect their rights, a report says.

The report, released by China's major micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo, said that more consumers are using the platform to complain about quality problems and bad shopping experiences. It was released on March 14, a day ahead of the World Consumer Rights Day on March 15.

Cao Zenghui, vice president of Sina Weibo, said that this year on the site's exposing platform, complaints of bad quality and bad experiences had been read 1.5 billion times, and consumers had published more than 869,000 posts on the platform.

Liu Daping, vice president of China Quality Promotion magazine, said that social media platforms are often very helpful for consumers to expose problems and safeguard their rights.

After being published on the social media platform and triggering wide discussion, it is easier to draw attention to complaints and get solutions from companies or government departments.

The report said that the most frequently complained sectors in 2016 were the express delivery industry, take-away food deliveries and airlines. Of every 100 comments about the express delivery industry, about 19 were negative, and the numbers for take-way food delivery and airline complaints were 13 and 11 respectively.

Sina Weibo has around 160,000 accounts for governments departments, 1.2 million for companies and 300 million active individual users. There are also a large number of industry experts who can provide professional advice and support to help consumers claim their rights, which also makes the platform more powerful in helping consumers, Cao said.