In March 2019, the General Office of the Central Committee issued a notice on reducing burdens at the grassroots. Provinces including Fujian, Zhejiang and Hebei then moved against zhijian shang de xingshi zhuyi, “formalism at the fingertips.” Officials were to be freed from too many WeChat and QQ work groups and government apps.
The discipline chief of Enshi prefecture in Hubei reported: “We merged or dissolved nearly 5,000 WeChat and QQ groups that had been set up by several offices or twice over. Grassroots officials are no longer ‘kidnapped’ by their phones.”