Someone noticed that even a bystander was interviewed by the media, but there is no interview of the victims or their families. No one has seen them since the violence happened.
People started analyzing the video more closely, and they worried that when the girl who was beaten very badly got up to run to a dark ally, something far worse than what people saw on the video was happening. Rumours were spreading fast, many say that three girls died. The girl in the video of an injured girl was the only surviving one. Many noticed that she was not beaten in the videos people have seen so far. If she was in such bad state, what is happening to the other three.
Journalist who tried to get into Tangshan found themselves harassed by local authorities. Since Jun 15th, anyone trying to get into Tangshan has to show their connections to the local community, or hotel bookings (with 48 hours advance notice). Even for those who managed to get in, they were detained by police for no reasons. An editor of an online media was detained by the police for 8 hours. The few who were not stopped by the police found it very hard to collect meaningful information. The journalists who tried the hospital said there were three checkpoints at the hospital. Almost no one can get through.
With this background, rumours of the worst possible situation spread fast and wide. The authority kept reassuring people that all of the girls were not in danger, two were hospitalized and two suffered minor injuries. Many people refuse to take the government words as truth. Weibo had to close 320 accounts for spreading rumours.
The latest news is that Tangshan is in lockdown. Only locals can get in. Any outsider needs a 48h notice to be able to get in.
Meanwhile, to assure Tangshan people that it is safe to eat outside, police now are patrolling night market with guns.
New York Times has reported on the abuse of health code on victims of a bank scam that have swallowed 40 billion yuans of 400,000 depositors, in A Chinese city may have used a COVID app to block protesters, drawing an outcry..
In the NYT article, a resident in Shenzhen got a red health code, because he is one of the depositors. So many people are asking: who has the right to change the color of health code and how do they know who are depositors at that bank?
If you admire the success of China’s COVID policy, you might be even more impressed to know that so far, no one knows how it actually works.
Meanwhile, when journalists wanted to get in touch with more of the victims of the bank scam, WeChat promptly interfered: “The petitioners’ movement is also closely watched by WeChat, the most popular messaging app in China. When one depositor messaged me and said she could send me contacts of others who were in police custody, her WeChat was blocked immediately and our conversation was cut off.”
Remember, this WeChat is what Elon Musk admires so much and wants to turn Twitter into.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affair reacted on June 14th quickly. The response seemed very reasonable. However, on Weibo, people noticed that the BBC video was heavily censored: “Now, only a 36 seconds long promo for the documentary can be found on Weibo.”
The man identified as Susu posted on his Weibo account that he did not make the video, and he alleged that the video was made by a for-profit organization from Taiwan. He then claimed that he is not an extremist, he just posted “objective” facts, for fun. He said many people DM-ed him and blamed him for making Chinese “loose face” (a Chinese way of saying “loose the pretense of being decent”). He asked them to rethink, “does BBC matter to you?” and “If you care about BBC, it means you bowed to foreigners and you are a slave to them”. He also claimed that BBC bowed to the blacks because of Big Black Cock.
There was not much discussion about the BBC video on Chinese social media.
For customers, Susu’s Douyin account was blocked and on Taobao, keyword of “African Congratulations!” returned no more results, but people say the keywords just got more subtle. The business of hiring foreigners for congratulations, or any other messages, is still flourishing, not just with African kids, but now extended to Egypt and Ukraine.