Six Chinese websites jointly launched a platform on Thursday to refute online rumors, a move that an official has termed Beijing's latest endeavor to clean up the "Internet environment."

The platform is a website that collects statements from Twitter-like services, news portals and China's biggest search engine, baidu.com, to refute online rumors and expose the scams of phishing websites.

The platform operates under the instruction of the Beijing Internet Information Office (BIIO) and the Beijing Internet Association, a non-profit social organization.

The Internet has expanded Chinese people's channels of expression, but also facilitated the circulation of rumors and false information, said Chen Hua, director of the Internet information service and management department under the BIIO.

"The platform will be a new effort by Beijing's websites to eradicate online rumors," he said.

The platform was jointly launched by websites Qianlong, Sogou, Sohu, Netease, Baidu and Sina Weibo.

So far, the first phase of the platform has been completed, said Chen.

It has collected about 100,000 brief statements on online rumors and phishing websites and offered Internet users about 30 websites through which they can report online rumors or scams.

Some Internet users create rumors to attract attention, while others do it to blow off  steam. However, rumors fabricated on purpose can be dangerous and incite panic, said Min Dahong, a research fellow on Internet usage.

According to Wu Chengguang, the news center director of Sohu, rumors travel especially fast in times of emergency such as natural disasters and other mass incidents.

Soon after downpours hit Beijing on July 21, 2012, Internet users began disseminating photos of severe flooding that had been taken years earlier.

Such rumors have had an

extremely harmful influence,

according to Wu, before adding

that the government's slow pace in releasing information in response to such events has

allowed Internet users to spread the rumors easily.

Xinhua