The Secretariat of the General Office of the State Council has recently distributed the Circular on Issuing the Indicators for Checks of and Annual Assessment Indicators for Regulation of Government Websites and Government New Media (the "Circular").
The Circular includes the Indicators for Checks of Government Websites and Government New Media (the "Indicators") and the Annual Assessment Indicators for Regulation of Government Websites and Government New Media. The Indicators are divided into three parts. The first part lists individual negative indicators which apply to all government websites, and government new media operated by government agencies; the second part sets out indicators under which penalty points will be imposed, while the third part enumerates indicators that will grant bonus points which apply to government portals. The Indicators show that the said individual negative indicators touch upon six aspects, such as "providing useless services", for government websites, and three aspects, such as "failing to update website content", for government new media. In case of any circumstances given for each negative indicator, the government website or government new media will be considered failing to meet the criteria. Moreover, the Circular clearly states that the General Office of the State Council will perform spot checks every six months to look into how nationwide government websites and government new media are run, annually assess regulatory efforts over government websites and government new media, and make public results of such spot checks and annual assessment.