According to the article “The Internet police in China: regulation, scope and myths” wrote by Xiaoyan Chen and Peng Hwa Ang, the authors focused on the analysis of the Chinese Internet censorship and the role of the internet police in China. With the emergence and the development of the Internet, the number of Internet users grew rapidly in China and reached 384 million in 2009, which is larger than the US Internet users. In order to keep the Internet community in order, the Chinese government has put a lot of effort to regulate and control the online space. The Internet police was one of the efforts that the Chinese government has been made to regulate and manage the Internet (Chen& Ang, 2011).
The public Information and Internet Security Supervision Bureau (PIISS) was set up in 1998, which intended as an online police unit to manage cyber space. This bureau was established at provincial, prefecture and county levels, which contains around 20000 Internet police everywhere in Mainland China (Chen& Ang, 2011). “Internet police work can be understood as supervision of the safety of the computer network and Internet systems, administrative regulation on Internet activities and detection of computer and Internet crimes” (Chen& Ang, 2011, P. 42). For example, to detect and prevent the transmission of the computer viruses, and to protect the security of the important computer information systems are within the scope of the supervision of the Internet police. Meanwhile, the Internet police has empowered after the public security administration punishments enacted in 2006. Their responsibility was extended to deal with the misbehavior that might happen to impact social orders. The empowerment of the Internet police made a permanent excuse for further monitoring of the people’s online activities.
As a fresh and pervasive used medium in China, the government soon realized the great impact of the Internet, at the same time; more rules and regulations