This is what we were afraid of with the anti-rumor campaign: thin-skinned officials out in the middle of nowhere — specifically, places where it’s difficult for watchdog organizations or institutions (media? ha!) or individuals to keep authorities accountable — cracking down on one’s freedom to express anger, frustration, or any host of other very human emotions that this country would prefer stay bottled up in the repressed chambers of our being.

A 16-year-old student in Gansu province (pictured) has been detained for daring to question a police bureau’s investigation — or lack thereof — into the mysterious death of a Jewel Time International Karaoke TV employee. Via Global Voices:

The man, whose surname was Gao, was found dead in the KTV on September 12. The police claimed that Gao committed suicide, but his family and friends questioned the police’s investigation.

Here’s the post in question, as translated by Global Voices:

It seems it is necessary to protest. What happened to Chinese police? What happened to the society? The police were holding shields and rods. What were they doing? Family members of the victim were detained and those who took photos were also detained. WTF. You don’t want the world to know what had happened? What are you afraid of? I am not afraid of you. I took pictures, arrest me, I dare you. May the dead rest in peace.

The anti-rumor campaign was always dangerous because it gave officials the ability to abuse their power, but now there’s another reason to doubt its efficacy: it gives officials an excuse to not do their work. Thoroughly investigate a suspicious death? Why? It’s not like people on social media will call anyone out for it.

The 16-year-old was arrested on September 17 and sentenced to a seven-day detention. He’s since “confessed” to spreading rumors, but no one comes out of this looking good. Here are some netizen responses, again via Global Voices:

Zhou Nan (@周难的微博): “What evidence did the Gansu police use to prove that the mass incident [on September 14] was related to the junior high school student’s posts?”

Lawyer Duo Muqing: “Some legal experts are ambivalent about the arrest of a junior high school kid in Gansu. Some say even if the kid is wrong, the police should not exercise their power to criminalize him. Instead, this is the arena of education. Such comments have created a lot of confusion and should not come from people with legal background. I want to stress that the boy has done nothing wrong and should not be educated. He should be praised and the police should be educated and punished.”

And the best of the lot:

“Brother Star PK dogs” (@大话星哥pk一群狗): “Bad news: They arrested a junior high school kid; Good news: They are afraid of junior high school kids.”

Yeah, they are, aren’t they? Grown adults in charge of this country are afraid of the power wielded from behind the keyboard belonging to a teenager. Think on this. Then consider whether it’s possible — what makes anyone think it’s possible — to suppress this form of expression.

Chinese Teenager Accused of Spreading Rumors Online Arrested (Global Voices) (Image via)

UPDATE, 3:16 pm: So we’re clear: the teen was detained last Tuesday, charged on Sunday night with a seven-day sentence — retroactive to Tuesday, it seems — and released this morning (via Sina).

Several places have reported on this, but Global Voices wins top-link for its headline: “Opinion Leader Charles Xue Forced to Prostitute Himself on Chinese State TV.”

Indeed, above, you’ll see Xue, an investor and influential social media presence, issuing one long self-criticism about the pratfalls of celebritydom. Remember, this was a guy who was arrested ostensibly for solicitation. Everyone has always speculated that it was actually for his outspokenness, which Xue seems to have confirmed with his 10-minute self-flagellation. 

Global Voices summarizes:

As an online celebrity and successful businessman, he attended many career talks, being interviewed by magazines and newspapers. His followers reached 5 millions in 2012 and he developed a habit of commenting on news and helping others to distribute their content. In 2013, he wrote in average 80 micro-blogs per day and had more than 12 million followers, a size equal to 3% of the 400 millions total internet population in China.

The CCTV host then commented that the Weibo communication mode has made Charles Xue egoistic because he was surrounded by so many friends.

Charles Xue then admitted that he could not possibly verify every piece of information he re-tweeted and that he was often emotional, not constructive and irresponsible. He said he felt himself like an emperor, “more powerful than a CCP secretary of a local government” as the number of fans he got is more than a major city. As a “star”, he was very high and lost himself.

The Washington Post has translations of more sound bites, including:

“It gratified my vanity greatly,” Xue said of the Internet. “I got used to my influence online and the power of my personal opinions . . . and I forgot who I am.”

And:

“First of all, I didn’t double-check my facts,” Xue said. “Secondly, I didn’t raise constructive suggestions to solve the problem. Instead, I just simply spread these ideas emotionally.”

At the end, he praised China’s anti-rumor laws, the same ones that have drawn criticism from provincial courts and everyone.

“It is very necessary to release these laws and regulations today,” he said in the video. “Without regulation, there’s no punishment for spreading the rumors.”

…“It’s not right for [popular bloggers] to behave higher than the law,” he said in a chastened tone. “If there is no moral standard or cost for slander, you can’t manage the Internet. And there are no limits. It becomes a big problem.”

Xue will probably get a reduced sentence for his cooperation. The authorities got the confession they wanted. Viewers get confirmation that Xue’s a pawn in the government’s anti-rumor campaign. Everyone wins?

The relationship between China’s central and local governments has never been linear or completely top-down. There are times of harmony, but more often, there’s tension. In the recent past, thanks to social media, conflicts and disagreements usually kept behind closed doors have begun leaking into the public domain.

Several recent posts on Sina Weibo by legal organs revealed that tensions are as manifest today as they were during historical times. Many netizens have gone as far to call these posts an act of “rebellion.”

It all started at the end of August when Beijing suddenly intensified its Internet censorship. Celebrity bloggers on Weibo were told to self-censor. Several “online rumor mongers” were arrested. And now, anyone tweeting “rumors” that potentially harm social order and national interests can end up in jail.

As if to mock the anti-online rumor campaign, the official Sina Weibo of Guangdong Supreme People’s Court quoted an ancient Chinese story from 542 B.C., “Zichan Won’t Abolish Town Hall (子产不毁乡校).”

Zichan was a powerful politician in the Zheng Kingdom. As the story goes, officials told him that many people were gathering at town halls to discuss political issues and criticize the government. One politician urged Zichan to abolish such town halls. Zichan refused: “Why abolish them? People go to town halls to discuss the merits of our policies. I will push forward policies that they like, and adjust those they don’t like. The people are like our mentors. Criticism will decline if we try hard to do a good job, but won’t if we use power to suppress people’s complaints. Criticism is like a river. To block a river won’t work. The best way is to lead and channel it.”

Many netizens hailed the courage of the person behind the Weibo account. At the same time, they questioned how a Chinese politician from several thousands of years ago can be smarter than today’s.

As if on cue, “Zichan Won’t Abolish Town Hall” is now a banned search term on Weibo.

Guangdong’ Supreme Court has seemingly started a chorus. Quoting from history or from famous figure is common practice in China who wish to avoid direct political confrontation. More courts have since done the same.

A few days later, the Intermediate People’s Court in Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Hubei province quoted Justice John Marshall Harlan from the famous Cohen v. California case:

The constitutional right of free expression is powerful medicine in a society as diverse and populous as ours. That the air may at times seemed filled with verbal cacophony is, in this sense, not a sign of weakness but of strength.

The lack of freedom of speech isn’t the only thing that China’s local legal organs are complaining about. The Justice Bureau of Dongguan, Guangdong province used a quote from Wang Fuzi, a well-known Chinese philosopher of the late-Ming and early-Qing Dynasties, to issue its opinion on corruption:

To severely punish corrupt officials of lower ranks, but to ignore those with similar crimes at the top. As such, the more severely the law punishes, the more corrupt cases there will be, and thus the more chaotic the country will become.

The intended goal for getting government agencies and officials on social media was to allow more open communication with the people. But what if these government agencies, or at least the employees in charge of managing these social media accounts, start to use the platform to openly voice disagreement with the central government?

Liu Guofeng, curator of the Sina Weibo account of Enshi Intermediate People’s Court, resigned a few days after the John Marshall post (though he claimed on his own Weibo that this had nothing to do with the quote).

The government can always tighten its grip on its employees, especially social media managers. But as one netizen wrote, “Suppression and prohibition won’t work in the long run.”

Alia is the founder of Offbeat China, where this post also appears.

Slanderous content — “rumors” — that are reposted at least 500 times or attract 5,000 views will put the author in danger of defamation charges and a three-year jail sentence, according to a clarifying statement issued by China’s Supreme Court on Monday.

We’ve known for a month that spreading “rumors” can cause legal repercussions, but this just makes it official, and puts a cold, hard number on it. It also reinforces something we’ve said before: you can do whatever you want here as long as it doesn’t offend the wrong person. No one cares if you’re verbally garroting the state in front of family and friends; widen that audience slightly, and then you risk offending someone who might have the power to do something about it.

As reported by WSJ, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate doesn’t want this new policy to limit the watchdog aspect of social media. As spokesman Sun Jungong puts it:

“Even if some details of the allegations or what has been exposed aren’t true, as long as [Internet users] aren’t intentionally fabricating information to slander others…they won’t be prosecuted on charges of defamation,” Xinhua quoted Mr. Sun as saying.

But that’s bullshit, if we’re being honest. It’s not just official abuse that we’re worried about, but incompetence from the enforcers. We’ve already seen it. One microblogger was detained for asking a question. At least two others were detained for misreporting the number of fatalities in a traffic accident. And there is, of course, Charles Xue — none other than Hu Xijin said the government has tools at its disposal to punish those whom they dislike. Presumably, Hu was too thick to realize that by calling this anti-rumor campaign a tool, he’s submarining a nascent law and siding with the activists.

Tech in Asia has more reactions from netizens who worry about the hypocrisy and absurdity of the 500 rule:

In an online environment when fans, followers, and retweets on Sina Weibo and WeChat can all be easily purchased from online PR firms, these laws could be fairly easily exploited to punish one’s enemies. For example, Beijing lawyer Hu Yihua satirically posted:

From now on, whenever anyone says anything bad about me, I’ll just get zombie followers to view their post 5,000 times or repost it 500 times and get them sent to prison.

Others have pointed out the absurd hypocrisy of the new regulations; a newspaper article that is viewed 5,000 times and ultimately proves to contain erroneous information is not generally considered grounds to imprison the author for three years. Indeed, state media outlets publish inaccurate, biased, or misleading information on a somewhat regular basis, and yet the authors are not arrested.

“Do not believe rumors, nor spread rumors. The official government source is the only information you should depend on.”

After locking someone up for misreporting the number of deaths in a traffic accident as 16 when it was really 10, and someone else for saying seven died in a different traffic accident when the real answer was three, and smearing Charles Xue, authorities apparently still believe their anti-rumor-mongering campaign is effective. In Qinghe, Hebei province, they’ve used it to net another victim recently:

Police in Qinghe county, Hebei province detained a female netizen on August 28 and accused her of spreading rumors and disturbing social order, People’s Daily reported.

That’s via Hug China, which continues:

On the night of August 26^th, a vigilant Qinghe police noticed a post by a netizen nicknamed 宁05021 in a questioning tone ”I heard that there happened a murder case in Louzhuang, anyone knows the truth?”

The post was read only 1,000 times before the police showed up, thinking “the post disturbed social order and caused panic among the masses.”

Oh yes, widespread panic, and maybe anger — which arresting microbloggers will surely not incite.

After receiving confirmation from relevant departments that no murder happened in Louzhuang, the police identified the post as rumor and took swift action and captured a 20-year-old woman surnamed Zhao on August 28.

Everything you say on the Internet must be factual. Got that? Otherwise, jail for you!

Hebei netizen detained on spreading rumor charges… (Hug China)

Whatever happens in the privacy of one’s home is apparently not always private, especially if you’re a notorious rabblerouser with 12 million followers on Sina Weibo.

Chinese American Charles Xue, aka Xue Biqun (and Xue Manzi on Weibo, an anti-trafficking and environmental adovcate), was captured in Beijing last Friday for soliciting a 22-year-old prostitute. That’s hardly the end of the story though. In the past week, authorities have gleefully smeared him in public, including on, it seems, every CCTV news broadcast, emphasizing Xue’s confession and his love for sex parties. LOCK HIM WITH THE PEDOPHILES!

There was also this story from Global Times, a publication unashamed about doing others’ dirty work, in which Xue is painted as a slick, dissolute, late-paying john who prefers ’MERICA! over his motherland:

Local police said on Wednesday that when they found Xue, he first said he was an American citizen and claimed he would call his lawyer to handle this.

…Sex workers could only identify Xue by seeing his face as he had never revealed his name or any other personal information.

…Xue called one pimp, surnamed Ma, and asked her to introduce a girl to him the day before he was detained, but Ma refused, claiming Xue habitually delayed paying.

…Xue was disgruntled and went to where Ma lived. Ma was ordered to find four girls then Xue had sex with three of them.

Prostitution is technically illegal in China (as is porn, but we all know how effective anti-porn campaigns are, eh Xinhua?), but it’s tolerated, sometimes right out in the open, since it’s an ancient industry that’s as resilient as any. (Also, because authorities often peruse those pink-lit barber shops, KTV VIP rooms and special foot massages, but we’d hate to mention that, now would we?) Indeed, the case of Charles Xue is not merely about paid sex — 26 others were detained, it so happens — or his orgies, but part of a larger crackdown on people whom authorities dislike.

We could almost call it a wider sting against freedom advocates. We use “freedom” loosely here to mean anyone who attempts to say anything outside of what’s officially acceptable, i.e. possible. They are labeled “rumor mongerers,” a shrewd designation, since no one likes bratty-tatty types, as even American middle school girls can tell you.

But among the horrible “rumors,” we have this: “The Beijing police moved against Beijing Erma Interactive Marketing and Planning after online posts surfaced attacking Lei Feng…” Lei fucking Feng. Note, please, that Erma Interactive is somewhat of a shady organization that’ll elicit no sympathy, but still… Lei fucking Feng.

And that netizen who “slandered” the Eighth Route Army – away you go. And this, via SCMP, which almost seems too outrageous to be true, but isn’t actually all that shocking when you consider the person in charge of enforcing nebulous “anti-rumor-mongering” laws just might be your local central Anhui city’s deputy of the Public Security Bureau (who we bet is — rumor alert! — a chain-smoking lardhead with a 21-year-old mistress):

In an act that has outraged China’s online community on Thursday, police in central Anhui province detained an internet “rumour-maker” after he said 16 people died in a traffic accident – which officials had claimed only killed 10.

Lest you think that was a one-off, in Shiyan, Hubei, a netizen was detained for reporting the number of dead in a traffic accident as seven, when it was three.

If an official lies about his office’s tax revenue, if a real estate mogul withholds relocation payments, if a mayor starts a riot by disseminating outright lies about, say, power plant construction plans, CCTV will likely not care unless — and this is goddamn irony here — it’s exposed on Sina Weibo first, and authorities don’t delete the posts. But if you’re a blogger who misreports a death toll, RUMOR MONGERER, OFF TO THE CLINK.

But hey, at least Charles Xue, that degenerate sex hound, is behind bars. Yay to justice, which continues to judge everyone equally, under the same laws.

Adapted with permission from Hug China.

Chinese American angel investor and Sina Weibo celebrity Charles Xue (a.k.a. Xue Manzi, with more than 12 million followers) has been detained in Beijing for “suspected involvement in prostitution,” China News reported on Sunday.

On August 23, off the tip from a local resident, Chaoyang District police captured Xue along with a 22-year-old woman from Henan province in a residential compound, according to the official weibo of Beijing Public Security Office:

After questioning, the two confessed to solicitation. The police department has placed the two under administrative detention in accordance with the law.

Charles Xue, whose Chinese name is Xue Biqun, is a prominent liberal celebrity who has actively campaigned against child trafficking. Born in Guangdong province in 1953, he is an American citizen. His father, Xue Zizheng, was a vice minister in China’s central government and died in 1980 at the age of 75.

Could Xue’s arrest be the result of retaliation for his outspokenness? Hu Xijin, the chief editor of Global Times, gives us some clues through his Weibo comment regarding this affair (now deleted, but preserved via screenshot):

We cannot exclude the possibility that authorities were using prostitution to entrap Xue Manzi. It is an unspoken rule that all governments worldwide frame political opponents through sex scandals, tax evasion charges. So here’s a reminder to those who engage in political dissent, if you wish to go down this path, keep your butts clean. If you have shortcomings yet still take on officials, you’ll be squashed sooner or later. And also, a reminder to the government, crack down on the right target and the process won’t be nitpicked, otherwise it may backfire.

Xue’s arrest comes during a continued crackdown by police in China against “online rumor mongers.”

Beijing police detained Liu Hu, a journalist at the popular newspaper News Express Daily based in Guangzhou, on suspicion of spreading rumors and stirring trouble after he alleged in late July that a senior government official was negligent with his public duties, People’s Daily reported on Sunday.

Also, Internet celebrity Zhou Lubao was arrested by Suzhou police for spreading online rumors and blackmailing people for up to several million yuan, Xinjingbao (New Beijing Daily) reported. The report said Zhou had accused the mayor of Lanzhou of wearing luxury watches that he could not afford.

And last week, Yang Xiuyu (a.k.a. Lierchaisi), founder of the Erma Company, and employee Qin Zhihui (a.k.a. Qinhuohuo) were arrested by Beijing police for “fabricating and spreading online rumors” regarding corruption, and “defaming the image of Lei Feng.”

Outspoken Chinese-American investor Charles Xue arrested in Beijing over ‘prostitution’… (Hug China)