
Chinese Coup Rumors Run Wild Online, Then Disappear - J3L2404
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-21/chinese-coup-rumors-run-wild-online-then-disappear-adam-minter.html
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riobard
Really bad journalism and reporting. No fact-checking, no reliable sources,
just pure speculations based on random “tweets” (from the Chinese clone of
Twitter named Sina Weibo).

TL;DR:

1\. A high-profile politician was relieved of duty.

2\. A famous businessman tweeted a cryptic message about the censorship about
this event on Sina Weibo.

3\. Someone tweeted that there was police and military vehicles in front of
the central government and thought it might be a coup.

4\. Someone else tweeted that s/he heard gunshot.

5\. Someone claimed it was actually fireworks (which was actually banned in
inner parts of Beijing except for a few days during the Spring Festival).

6\. The term “coup“ was then put into the censorship list of Sina Weibo and
thus became unsearchable.

7\. A spokesman of the Foreign Ministry denied rumors of the coup.

Seriously, what's the point of this kind of stuff?

~~~
adjwilli
When censorship doesn't allow proper journalism, speculation is better than
nothing.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Living in China, I was going to reply the same way. Without factual
information, all you have are rumors. The opacity of the CCP necessarily leads
to crap like this.

Bloomberg was meta-reporting on the rumor, where it is factually verifiable
that the rumor has arisen. In the absence of real information rumors are very
important to our daily life; e.g., if chinadaily explicitly refutes a rumor,
it gains some possibility of actually being true since otherwise they probably
would not have taken the effort to refute it. I can understand why Bloomberg
would take the presence of a rumor as news, not claiming any truth to the
rumor as fact.

We are still on edge with the Wang Lijun Chengdu consulate incident. What the
heck was that all about (we still don't have any clue)? Something is up, and
since this year is a leadership change, there is a lot of power jockeying
going on, really anything could happen. Its going to be a very interesting
year to say the least.

------
judgej2
Here we see the folly of censorship. If one farts in a vacuum, the fart
quickly spreads to occupy the entire area.

~~~
meric
It spreads so far and wide it disappears very quickly too.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The rumor was only censored, it wasn't obliterated. The weibo crowd will just
start using code words to keep talking about it.

~~~
chives
Nothing regarding this has surfaced on the deep web. I doubt there is much
truth to the rumor.

------
olalonde
> Regarding last night’s internet rumors that loud noises in Beijing were
> caused by gunfire … actually the citizens of Beijing welcome the news that
> oil prices will rise and spontaneously gather in the streets to set off
> fireworks and celebrate. Don’t worry about a coup!

Actually, I've heard several fireworks in Shenzhen today (even heard one while
writing this comment). I'm surprised anyone would assume a gunshot when
fireworks are so common (at least, in the area where I live).

