The poorly ordered structure of "strong central government and weak local government" is a typical feature of civic government trust in China. Empirical evidence on whether and how Internet use, as an important way of shaping citizen government trust, affects differential government trust is scarce. Therefore, this paper empirically analyzes the data from the 2021 Comprehensive Survey of Social Conditions in China and finds that, after effectively dealing with endogeneity issues, Internet use strengthens poorly-ordered government trust, which is mainly achieved by increasing central government trust and decreasing local government trust, and the conclusion still holds when we use the robustness test by changing the measurement criteria, the propensity score matching method, and entropy equilibrium method. The results of mechanism analysis show that Internet use significantly reduces local government performance evaluation and weakens authoritarian values, which to some extent validates the explanatory logic of both institutional and cultural paths. The article provides a more effective explanation for the study of the relationship between Internet use and poorly ordered government trust, and offers important policy implications for improving the structure of political trust in the digital age.