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New Threads is not anti-Chinese government, nor is it pornographic or related to the banned Falungong cult. It is not about Taiwan independence, Tibet or Xinjiang. It simply reveals academic misconduct in China.
New Threads is run by Fang Shiming, better known as Fang Zhouzi, a Chinese citizen living in the United States. A graduate of the University of Science and Technology of China, one of the country’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, Fang went on to receive a doctorate in biochemistry from Michigan State University and conduct post-doctoral research in the United States. Instead of pursuing a career in academics or business, Fang has become a science writer as well as a crusader of academic misconduct in China.
Because of the lack of formal channels to single out “bad apples,” Chinese have to turn to the Internet, and New Threads has stood out. The website encourages real-name whistleblowers, although posts could be anonymous, and Fang Zhouzi also does due diligence and in-depth research to verify anonymous complaints.
According to Fang, since 1997 at least several hundred cases of fraud – mainly plagiarism, fabrication and falsification of data, exaggeration of research findings, misuse of research money, and the promotion of commercial products of questionable quality – have been exposed through the website. There is even an English website that follows cases exposed by New Threads.
In recent years Chinese scientific and education authorities – from the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, the National Natural Science Foundation of China to the Chinese Academy of Sciences – have formulated regulations to deal with misconduct in research. But rarely have cases of misconduct been raised by these authorities.
However, some stories that originated on New Threads have been picked up by Chinese media, putting pressure on those involved. Serious investigations have been launched into some cases, which have led to the punishment of some of the accused.
Therefore, the existence of New Threads has proved to be, and can continue to be, a nightmare to those who have not been well behaved. They could become New Threads’ next targets, given the increasing attention in China to the issue of academic honesty.
Some of these potential targets have mobilized to attack New Threads, claiming that it simply fabricates facts, although almost all its cases are documented with sufficient and substantial evidence. They have accused the website of being a forum to blackmail academics through online “big character posters,” or “dazibao,” a creation of the Cultural Revolution for attacking political foes. Some have even filed anti-defamation cases against Fang.
They also have characterized Fang as an enemy, although he himself has been frequently profiled in and interviewed by Chinese media, most recently by Xinhua, China’s official news agency, on the popularization of science. Finally, New Threads has been blocked, treated no differently from pornographic or anti-Chinese Communist Party websites.
As the New Threads website helps safeguard the integrity of the Chinese academic community, this censorship really does no good to the development of science and technology in China.
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(Cong Cao is a senior research associate with the Neil D. Levin Graduate Institute of International Relations and Commerce at the State University of New York. He received his PhD in sociology from Columbia University in 1997 and has worked at the University of Oregon and the National University of Singapore. Dr. Cao is interested in the social studies of science and technology with a focus on China. ©Copyright Cong Cao.)
