Society

Netizens will be able to communicate with the Beijing police through microblogs in the near future, with the founding of the Beijing police's first public relations branch.

The public relations branch, officially established on Tuesday, is part of the Beijing police's plan to better their relationship with residents.

A new survey shows that more than half of female graduate students in Shanghai show an understanding attitude toward other girls who are kept as lovers by rich men or who work at night clubs.

The survey was conducted by the journalism school of Fudan University in June with more than 900 female students at the city's 17 universities who graduate this year. About 40 percent were from Shanghai, while the rest were from other parts of the country.

Researchers said the students also showed a free and open attitude toward sex and marriage.

Fifty-six percent of the students said they could understand a girl becoming the lover of a rich man, though they wouldn't do it themselves, 20 percent said they despised such behavior, 20 percent said they have no idea why girls do this, and 2 percent considered it normal and said they may make the same choice one day.

Also, 55 percent showed an understanding attitude toward girls who work in night clubs, with nearly 3 percent saying it is normal and that they may possibly to do it themselves one day.

The Beijing team behind "Green Dam Youth Escort", an Internet filtering software used to block violent and pornographic content, has been terminated owing to a lack of funds. The other project team of the software in Zhengzhou, Central China's Henan province, is also running under the possibility of dismissal at any moment, Beijing Times reported today.

Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy and Zhengzhou Jinhui Computer System Engineering co-developed Green Dam after winning a 41.7-million-yuan ($6.1 million) bid from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in 2008.

The office of the project team in Beijing closed in June and all of its staffers had been dismissed, said Chen Xiaomeng, the general manager of the Beijing company which got 19.9 million yuan ($2.9 million) from the 41.7-million-yuan bid in 2008.

"We indeed lack funds. We cannot keep on operating any more after a one-year bitter struggle," said Chen. The 19.9 million yuan could only offset the Dazheng's one-year spending from 2008-2009. Since then, both Dazheng and Jinhui have never gotten any additional operating funds, added Chen.

In January, the Ministry of Education required local education authorities to conduct regular examinations on primary and secondary school websites, as well as install filter software on school computers to shield the primary and secondary school students from violent and pornographic content. The MIIT had bought one-year Green Dam service as part of the bid in 2008 to let the public enjoy a free download of this software.

More than 20 million users who have installed the "Green Dam Youth Escort" will be impacted by the closure of Beijing's project team which is responsible for the maintenance of its website and for promotion.. The tough situation of the other team in Zhengzhou, which is in charge of technology and service including after service, also poses a potential impact on users.

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