3 Imprisoned for Spreading Fake COVID News to Overseas!

Source: OT-Team(S,J), Beijing News, thepaper.cn

To gain more attention to their Wechat accounts, three men in Fuqing (Fujian province) fabricated false news about the COVID-19 epidemic. The Fuqing Court concluded the case of fabricating and deliberately disseminating false information recently. The three defendants were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of one year, three months to eight months.

At the end of February 2020, during the control of the COVID-19 epidemic, Xue came up with the idea of fabricating articles that exaggerated the great impact on overseas Chinese due to the epidemic in order to attract readers and increase the attention to the official accounts that he has been operating. He asked the employee Lin to fabricate the articles with false information template "XX (different foreign country names) under the epidemic: shops are closed, it is difficult for Chinese to return home”and later published in different accounts in 18 foreign countries. The fabricating articles were read for over 21 thousand times totally until the fake information got blocked (8200 times were read under the account under direct operation of Guo).

After the false article was published, it misled Chinese in both China and abroad to believe that severe epidemic occurred in the above-mentioned 18 countries, and seriously disrupting the order of the society.

After the trial, the Fuqing Court announced that:

During the COVID-19 epidemic, Xue and Lin fabricated false epidemic information and deliberately spread it through network. Guo, a relative to Xue, who was also involved, knew that it was false epidemic information and deliberately spread it on the social network, he seriously disrupted social order, and his behavior has constituted fabricating, as well as the crime of deliberately spreading false information. Given that Xue, Lin, and Guo surrendered after committing crimes and all pleaded guilty, the judgment was made that all three defendants would be put into prison for one year, three months to eight months. Another employees Yu who followed instruction and assisted with the work, will also be penalized accordingly.