A news portal under the Chinese Communist Youth League (CLA) has fought back against recent criticisms of the CLA's recent "cyberspace civilization youth volunteer" scheme.

An article published on a news portal under the CLA, youth.cn, Tuesday argues that the scheme, which asks young people to help "clean up" cyberspace, should be seen as a good thing, despite the fact that it was "misinterpreted" by some netizens.

The CLA called on Chinese youth earlier this year to participate in the scheme under which volunteers will commit to regularly posting comments in a "civilized and sensible" manner and to post articles, videos and Weibo posts that are related to the idea of socialism, according to the websites of several universities and CLA local committees.

Volunteers should also report and refute "malicious speeches" which harm national unity or involve pornographic or pro-drug messages.

A cleanup of cyberspace is urgently needed as netizens that maliciously attack those who post positive, pro-government comments could confound right and wrong and disrupt the entire Internet environment, read the article.

Those netizens disrupt social stability and endanger the regimes' security, it said, calling on teenagers to participate in the CLA scheme and become "cyberspace civilization youth volunteers" to fight negative noises and spread positivity.

The article claimed that teenagers are the most active group online and the most influential in society and that they should be obligated to develop a civilized online environment.

The scheme aims to recruit about 10,000 volunteers, 4,000 of which are college students. Applicants have to submit their name, date of birth, political status as well as Weibo and Weixin account name, the South China Morning Post reported.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said in February that Internet security and informatization are major strategic issues concerning a country's security, development and the people's life and work. Xi also urged China to work to build a more "clean and chipper" cyberspace.


Newspaper headline: CLA website hits back at critics of cyberspace plan