Chinese HS student victim of new Chinese Internet crackdown
[UPDATE 9/24/2013: The student has since been released.]
Somebody died in Gansu province under suspicious circumstances. An inquisitive high school student was following the case and tweeting about it on China’s Twitter-like service, Sina Weibo.
Then the police came knocking.
16 year old Yang, a student at Zhangjiachuan middle school, posted several times about the murky circumstances of the death to his Weibo account two days after the death.
This is one of the first uses of new laws introduced last week to counter online rumor spreading. According to the new policy, posting a message viewed as inaccurate by the Chinese government that is retweeted 500 times or visited by 5000 internet users can lead to up to three years of jail.
Unintended consequences. I mean, who would expect teenagers to use the Internet?
More: 16-Year-Old Detained for Being Retweeted 500 Times: Shanghaiist