Chinese government agencies are slowly transforming popular mobile messaging application, WeChat, into a platform for interaction with the Chinese public.Subscribers to government accounts on WeChat can now access political advice and government financial publicity details.
Although WeChat’s core feature is instant messaging, other features such as photo-sharing, news feeds, online shopping and cab hailing have been incorporated into the application by its operator, Tencent.
Government WeChat accounts have mushroomed over the past year from 3,600 at the end of 2013 to nearly 6,000 by the end of March (2014), according to a report released in July by the Communication University of China.
Tencent has ranked the accounts operated by the government in terms of page views and likes. The Chinese Central Government, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Education were the top three accounts from August 11-15.
Tencent said the central government WeChat account had more than 22,000 page views on average. The finance ministry has published one article which has been viewed more than 100,000 times.
The CUC report listed several examples of how the government is using innovative techniques to interact with Chinese citizens. For example, police in Shouguang county of Shandong Province have issued an order requesting the ability them to arrest on WeChat.
However, according to the report, this form of communication also faces many problems. For example, the threat of prompt information disclosure.
Peng Bo, deputy director of the State Internet Information Office, said earlier this month that China will increase government presence on WeChat in the second half of 2014, by setting higher performance goals.