BEIJING - Major online media outlets on Friday simultaneously opened special webpages to solicit public tips that may help to combat corruption.

They include websites associated with the Xinhua News Agency, the People's Daily and the Guangming Daily, as well as news sites operated by Internet portals Sina, Sohu and Netease.

The informant pages are highlighted on the sites' home pages and lead to links to five online informant centers.

Netizens can use the pages to provide tips to the Communist Party of China's (CPC's) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Supreme People's Court and the Ministry of Land and Resources.

He Zengke, a research fellow with the Central Compilation & Translation Bureau, a CPC think tank, said the creation of the pages indicates that online muckraking is becoming increasingly popular.

The pages will help people report corruption and illegal activity in an orderly and legitimate manner, according to the scholar.