介绍:
Heyang: Nowadays so many of us can’t survive without checking our Wechat moments or friend circle constantly. Guess who uses it the least? It’s the government officials. Why is it?
很多人习惯在日常生活或工作中使用微信，但是南方周末记者观察发现官员是微信使用频率最低的一群人，而且也很少发朋友圈。这是为什么呢？如果他们使用微信或朋友圈，他们又会怎么用呢？
So government officials just don’t like Wechat? What’s going on here?
Luo Yu: The Wechat Moment or literally translated as “friend circle” in Chinese is a function a lot of people avoid using. Sometimes they just read the messages posted on Moments without even giving likes to them. And some of them not only refuse to use Wechat themselves, but also ask family members to post fewer messages on Wechat Moments. This deed is actually very popular among government officials in China.
Reporters of Southern Weekly, a weekly news magazine in China, found that officials working some government departments are the group of people that use the least of Wechat. Some of them even do not have a Wechat account.
I think from my perceptive, it’s quite understandable. As government officials try to avoid superiors to know what they are doing, especially when we see this wave of unprecedented anti-graft campaign.
Michael: I would agree with Luo Yu there. I would argue that the governmentofficials in many ways have the most to lose from posting information on Wechat, regardless of whether or not it’s about the work that they might do or any ill-gotten gains or sort of nefarious activities. I would argue it is fairly sort of secretive sort of profession, you don’t want to reveal too much about yourself online. I know friends of mine in the UK, a lot of them are teachers for example, and there are several reasons as to why you wouldn’t want to make yourself easy to find or easy to look up on social network if you are a teacher. I can imagine the same for a public servant or government official in China. I think less is more in this case.
LY: And I think apart from revealing your personal life to the public, one factor is that some people tend to not be very proactive on publicizing some of the political incorrect message. For example, not long ago, a government official there in Shandong Province, he left some negative comments on Wechat friend circle saying something negative and then this guy was punished by the disciple inspection bureau of the provincial level.
M: I think it’s kind of his own fault. If you are talking about something that’s fairly controversial or incendiary like that and you post it quite openly. I think if you play with fire you are going to get burnt, aren’t you?
HY: And I think with government officials, there’s something special or unique about their identity. That is, at least the way I see it here in China, often it is expected from them even in their private life that has a public sphere to it. Let me explain. So like you see those stricter guidelines for government officials in grassroot villages not to spend over an amount of money to have parties…wedding parties…for their family members. Sometimes I think government officials have been looked under the scrutiny of the eye in a far stricter way or a lot more hasbeen expected from them. Then it’s not that difficult to understand that they should be a little bit more cautious about their action.
M: Exactly, in the last two or three years, we’ve seen China’s leadership really cracking down on extravagant displays and things like this. It’s understandable that they’d want to do this certainly.
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