Following Entry Posted 5/07/2008 06:30:00 AM

Chinese Blogger Jailed for Reporting False Information

(Shandong Province, China) A Chinese blogger (netizen), called "SS Highland Teacher," has been sentenced to five days administrative detention for cross-posting a story he found on an obscure local forum and not verifying that is was true.

On April 28, there was a train collision on the Jiaoji Railroad in Shandong province. Many people got on the Internet to discuss the incident. "SS Highland Teacher" came across a post written by someone else that characterized the train collision as an terrorist act as well as inflated the number of casualties. He thought the post was interesting and since the post had appeared already, he decided to cross-post it at Baidu's Gaomi Post Bar.

The post made by "SS Highland Teacher" was deleted shortly afterwards, but not before the Gaomi city public security bureau spotted it. Since the post had appeared in an obscure local forum, very few people saw it.

Nevertheless, the public security bureau determined that the information had violated the People's Republic of China's national security law about dissemination of false information to disrupt public order. The relevant law stipulates that misreporting crises, epidemics, police information and other means to disrupt public order is subject to 5 to 10 days in detention and/or a fine of less than 500 RMB. [my bold]

The police used the information that "SS Highland Teacher" had posted about himself on the Internet at various times (such as mobile telephone number and QQ number) to track him down. "SS Highland Teacher" was apprehended on April 30. "SS Highland Teacher" admitted to posting the relevant information and he was sentenced to 5 days of administrative detention.

This is nuts! SS Highland Teacher didn't mis-report, he simply copied and posted someone else's report. There's also no indication that he intended to disrupt public order.

It appears that the law's purpose is to simply suppress dissemination of news, despite the correctness of the reporting. Logically, the net effect is that all bloggers will be reluctant to pass on any information they cannot personally verify.

By the way, wouldn't it be interesting if the global warming alarmists had to comply with the Chinese misreporting law?

Companion post at The Jawa Report
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