‘Gold-digger’: China blogger jailed over fake news claiming woman’s grandpa was tycoon husband, attracting 470 million views online
- A year behind bars for online influencer who ‘defamed’ woman and ‘jeopardised social order’
- Mainland authorities intensify crackdown against online intimidation and aggression
A man in China who spread fake news online about a “gold-digger” marrying an ageing tycoon, alongside photos of a young woman with her grandfather, has been jailed for a year.
The perpetrator, surnamed Wu, was sentenced by Dongguan No 1 People’s Court in southeastern Guangdong province, for “fabricating facts that defamed” and which resulted in “serious consequences that jeopardised the social order”.
In November 2021, Wu falsely wrote on a social media platform that a 73-year-old Dongguan entrepreneur had married a 29-year-old woman and given her 880,000 yuan (US$122,000), a flat worth 800,000 yuan and a luxury car.
With his post, which included several pictures taken from the woman’s social media account without her permission, Wu hoped to attract online traffic to help him sell property projects.
The woman whose account he took the images from, surnamed Shen, had shared the photographs online in 2018 of her with her grandfather, of whom she was very fond. She did not know Wu.
Wu’s post was viewed 470 million times and shared more than 31,000 times. About 76,000 comments were left, most of which directly, or by implication, called Shen “a gold-digger”.