Chinese police arrest two men for spreading ‘false information’ online
December 12th, 2011 - 5:50 pm ICT by BNO NewsCHANGSHA, CHINA (BNO NEWS) — Chinese police arrested two men on Sunday after they allegedly spread false information online about a large number of police officers guarding a wedding in south-central China, state-run media reported on Monday.
The two men, both in their twenties, are accused of spreading a rumor online that some 5,000 police officers and 100 police vehicles were seen guarding a wedding convoy in the city of Changsha on Tuesday. They also posted a video clip which showed a large number of police officers and a wedding convoy.
But authorities, who called the incident a ‘coincidence’, claim the police officers were simply returning from a training drill and happened to be passing the wedding convoy at that moment. The state-run Xinhua news agency said the rumor spread quickly, with the video receiving large numbers of hits.
The pair responsible for posting the information and the video were arrested in Changsha on Sunday, Xinhua said. The report quoted police officials as saying that the men will be detained for a total of five days in accordance with relevant laws.
The Chinese government has vowed in recent months to crack down on ‘false information’ being spread online. Sina Weibo, the country’s most popular microblogging service which is similar to Twitter, recently agreed to set up so-called ‘rumor-crushing teams’ to delete false information from its website.
In September, the number of Chinese citizens who have access to the internet surpassed half a billion, representing an increase of more than 15 million in just two months. The Asian country, which has a total population of 1.3 billion, has more internet users than any other country in the world.
Nonetheless, the infamous ‘Great Firewall of China’ still severely restricts access to web users. Restrictions are imposed on foreign news websites, pornography, political commentary, pro-democracy websites, and other politically sensitive subjects such as the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
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Tags: asian country, bno, changsha china, chinese citizens, chinese government, chinese police, convoy, false information, foreign news, news websites, police arrest, police officials, police vehicles, political commentary, relevant laws, sensitive subjects, sina, south central china, total population, xinhua news agency