China teen arrested for controversial crime of spreading
rumors online
This article is about a 16 year old Chinese schoolboy who was arrested for
spreading rumors over the internet that was questioning a crime investigation the
police was involved with. Police reported an “accidental” death of a man falling from
the second floor, but the boy, Yang, believes he was severely beaten then thrown off
the second floor. He wrote his beliefs on his QQ account, which is a Chinese message
board that is popular amongst the youth. In early September there was a ruling in
the Chinese Supreme Court that declared :“somebody spreading a rumor on the
Internet could be punished if a message was reposted 500 times or viewed more
than 5,000 times.” Yang’s post created a lot of attention with the public and after he
was detained, Yang was seen as a free speech figure.
In this article Yang was charged with a crime in China. Although I don’t believe he
did anything wrong, it was noted as “breaking the law” in China due to the new
rules and regulations that were enforced. Of the different causes Suler identifies
as generating disinhibition, I would say that “invisibility” was Yang’s leading tool
used in disinhibition. I believe that after the new law that was declared, Yang was
nervous to speak his mind physically, and although spreading rumors via the
internet was illegal, he probably felt the risk of getting identified was low. Besides
the idea of just physically calling out the police and creating conspiracies, I think
Yang might be a little insecure and would prefer to hide behind his computer and
let his text cause all the movements that he felt should be heard within the public.
Yang was trying to bring justice to a case he felt was being ignored, he questioned
the police and brought new ideas to the public mind and was noted as a criminal
for it. Many people including Yang use the internet as a tool to hide, to be invisible,
because the reader doesn’t know who they are receiving this information from,
so there might be more of chance of people taking them seriously. In Yang’s case,
he was a 16-year-old boy, he might have believed that no one in his or her right
minds would sit and read about his opinions on crooked law enforcement and
conspiracies. He would prefer to stay “invisible” and let people read the text prior to
giving them a chance to judge him about his age or education level.
http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-china-arrest-rumors-internet-
20130921,0,2831881.story
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