Woman who claimed her father died is detained
Print Edition
A 19-YEAR-OLD woman surnamed Yang has been detained by police after she received 90,000 yuan (US$14,000) from people who believed her online claims that she had lost her father in the Tianjin disaster.
Police in Fangchenggang, a city in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said Yang’s parents are alive and had never been to Tianjin.
The woman had initially claimed on microblogging platform Sina Weibo that her father was missing as a result of the blasts.
She saw her Weibo follower numbers shoot up as a result of the post, police said.
She then published a second post in which she claimed her father had died in the explosions, spurring more than 3,000 fellow users to send donations via the social media platform.
Weibo recently added a reward function to its site, allowing users to transfer funds to others via its own platform, ostensibly to show appreciation.
Yang was unable to withdraw the funds, however, as her account was frozen after several Weibo users reported their suspicions about her, police said.
She was detained for defrauding users.
Meanwhile, a man has been detained for claiming that 1,300 people died in the disaster.
The Tianjin native, an 18-year-old surnamed Kang, said on his QQ account that the blast had killed 482 members of the public and hundreds of firefighters.
The claims, which had been reposted many times, had caused a negative influence, police in the city said.
Kang had admitted that his claims were unverified, they said.
He was given a five-day detention for disturbing public order.
According to a Xinhua news agency report, the Cyberspace Administration of China has accused 50 websites of creating panic by publishing unverified information or letting users spread groundless rumors.
The administration has shut down and revoked the licenses of 18 websites and suspended another 32, and it said it took a zero-tolerance attitude toward websites spreading rumors after major disasters.
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