(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-02-27 19:27

BEIJING - From fake photos forging the appearance of rare animals to real pictures exposing the sex life of a number of Hong Kong celebrities, individual Internet players have proved that they are no less powerful than the world's leading news broadcasters in riveting people's attention.

The reach of the Internet has empowered individuals to speak aloud and to be heard, or perhaps, to make their scandals universally known. The sweeping effect challenges the government's ability not just in Internet governance, but also in crisis dealing.

As the sex scandal victim Edison Chen said in his public statement of apology, "this matter has deteriorated to the extent that the society as a whole has been affected by this (scandal)."

Hong Kong's mainstream media Wen Wei Po found from its questionnaire reply that 40 percent of high school and primary school respondents say they have seen the sex pictures on the Internet.

Browsing the pictures has become such a trendy thing that those who missed them are shy to admit it, since they could be "laughed" at by their friends, said the newspaper.

However, Chen is not the only one to blame; society is responsible for fuelling the scandal and people should all reflect on it.

Chinese police departments have arrested 11 people suspected of allegedly producing, selling and purchasing discs of the photos downloaded from the Internet. But the efforts have been much slower than the swift spreading of the photos on the Internet.

As American sociologist Duncan Watts put it in his book Small Worlds, with the inception of the Internet, "local actions can have global consequences."

Networks such as food webs, ecosystems and the Internet turn out to be small worlds, said Watts in the book, which has been published by the Publishing House of People's University of China, and recommended by sociologists as a "must-read" for decision-making in regards to network governance and organization design.

By the end of 2007, the number of Internet users in China's mainland surpassed 210 million, and that of registered websites reached 1.5 million. Over 70 million blog sites have been opened on the Internet.

The Internet is going mobile in China. In a few years, the country's 539 million mobile subscribers will get access to the Internet via their mobile phones.

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