You might remember one enterprising Chinese citizen who earned a reward of RMB 3,000 for tipping police off about a suspected foreign terrorist last March, regardless of the fact that the accused wasn’t a terrorist at all.

The same powers have seen a number of Chinese celebrities ratted out for suspicious activity since 2013, as well as arrested for drug-related activities. For example, Jaycee Chan (Jackie Chan’s son), Song Dongye, Li Daimo, Ke Zhendong, Wang Xuebing, Gaohu, Zhang Yaoyang, Huang Haibo, and Ning Caishen have all been bagged by these do-gooders, in the name of civic duty.

Due to the increasing authority of the Chaoyang masses, netizens have begun to refer to them as the “fifth information organization," comparing them to the likes of the CIA, MI6, the KGB, and Mossad, the People’s Daily reports.

Obviously there’s no such thing of “snitches get stitches” in the everyone's a potential terrorist environment that is Civilized Chaoyang, so in a move towards arming the masses with even more authority, Chaoyang Police have now developed an app to make it even easier to rat people out.

Claiming to “rely on the masses, all for the masses, and serving the masses,” the Chaoyang Masses HD app (朝阳群众HD) has gone live in the App Store, and after downloading and registration, can be used to contact the authorities about five main incidents: major cases, people finder, lost and found, suspects, and cars. On each page, there’s a red button on the right-hand side, giving people the option to “report.” By clicking on the report button users can then send leads in text, picture or video form, and stand the chance of receiving several hundred, if not thousands of kuai, as a reward for their efforts.

With this newly developed app it is now even more convenient to report suspicious activity, something that is causing a lot of chatter in the Chinese media, with over 1,298,000 tags of the app's Weibo page at 4pm this afternoon (Feb 14). The posts in general appear positive, lauding the all-seeing powers of Chaoyang damas, but then again it's difficult to tell whether the negative comments have been deleted due to the cunning eye of said grannies.

So, if you see anything suspicious, you know where to go. In fact, we wonder if people can earn enough to make a living just by ratting people out. We might start with the select few who habitually smoke in our office building's toilet, whenever they need to take a dump – that should get us a few extra mao.

More stories by this author here.

Email: tracywang@thebeijinger.com

Twitter: @flyingfigure

Instagram: @flyingfigure

Photos: Beijing News, Beijing Times, Weibo，news.china