Internet police needed to protect virtual society

Internet police in 50 Chinese localities, including Beijing and Shanghai, launched a campaign to clean up popular social networking platforms such as Sina Weibo and WeChat starting Monday, in a bid to further curb cyber crimes. Their job includes detecting and removing illegal and harmful contents on the Internet, especially those harmful to children and women. Comments:

The Internet police are neither obliged nor supposed to make moral and political judgments on law-abiding online posts. It is only the illegal comments that have to be regulated. In a modern society, virtual or real, the police are part of the rule of law. Such being the case, online opinion leaders should not be an exception.

Global Times, June 1