Online forums are for public discussions

People talk in front of Baidu Inc, which operates China's most popular Internet search engine, in Beijing.[File Photo]

AMID GROWING concern over their excessive commercialization, Baidu pledged on Tuesday to stop monetizing all of its illness-related forums on Tieba, an online community-based group discussion service, and said it will invite non-profit organizations to run these online discussion groups. The Chinese search engine giant has reportedly sold the operation of a number of online forums to unqualified hospitals even local governments via third-party companies. Beijing News questions some governments' desire to run such online forums:

It is understandable that some local governments want to gauge netizens' opinions on local affairs, but their intervention is likely to be at the cost of sincere public participation if their involvement is known.

That many local Tieba groups are popular among Chinese netizens has little to do with governments' so-called guidance. Instead, it is more a result of netizens' attempts to exchange information on a variety of social issues, especially sensitive and unconfirmed information that can hardly be found in the news, such as natural disasters and scandals concerning officials.

True, local online forums are not immune to rumors and sensational hearsay, but to some extent, they are able to purge themselves of unidentified information via thorough in-group discussions.

In other words, local governments could put more efforts into collecting, analyzing, and participating in relevant online discussions, as well as responding to outstanding concerns in a timely manner, instead of simply buying the operation of a Tieba forum. It is possible that these online communities may lose their magic and popularity if officials seek to block people's opinions or fabricate advantageous posts.

According to the country's newly approved regulations on online information providers, Baidu is allowed to pursue profits by running online community-based group discussion services, so long as it does not maneuver the operation of such forums in any way. That being said, by selling its Tieba groups to some local governments, the Internet giant might have failed to observe the regulations.