The Yongchuan Government Promotional Photos
This is a promotional campaign for the local government of Yongchuan in Chongqing city, China. But what exactly are they promoting here? Read on and find out ... Just bear in mind that there is an unstoppable Internet firestorm right now ...
(QQ)
At 9:23am on June 18, a netizen with ID Zihao (仔豪) posted a set of four photographs labeled Yongchuan International Online (yc.chinacsw.com) on the Chongqing forum of the Tianya website. The page also linked to a page at the Yongchuan International Online with seventeen photographs in all, posted by a person named Chen with the Chongqing City Shenglong Advertising Company. The photographs were supposed to describe a physical examination of 2,000 youths in Yongchuan on November 1, 2005. Yongchuan International online is jointly sponsored by the China Cities website and the Yongchuan municipal government.
On June 18, after the photographs appeared, the netizens began to protest: How can the government publish such private photographs? The reporter contacted a worker named Shi Guangfu who claimed to work at the Shenglong Advertising Company. He said that the photographs are authentic. Since the subjects were all male and show only their backs, the website published the photographs. "But this is treated as a news release whose purpose is to promote Yongchuan. There is no other purpose."
The author Mr. Chen said that the photographs were taken with the consent of the relevant department as news photographs. Some newspapers have already published them, so this is "normal process." But he thought that it was inappropriate for these photographs to be circulated on the Internet. Shi Guangfu said that "this can be considered a mistake."
More than a month ago, the principals protested to the local government. At 10am yesterday morning, Shi Guangfu said that they have already deleted all the nude physical examination photographs from Yongchuan International Online. But the photographs that were already posted on Tianya and other forums will continue to circulate [because it is impossible to track them all down].
If these photographs were not inspected by the relevant departments prior to release, then this is obvious a failure in the supervision and inspection process of government website information. We live in an information society and the damage of harmful information cannot be underestimated. This time, it was some nude photographs; next time, it could be terrorist information.
If these photographs were inspected by the relevant departments prior to release, then it shows that the relevant persons have very superficial and wrong ideas about legal knowledge and civil respect.
