A Chinese influencer with over 4 lakh followers was arrested after he pretended to be a single father who had to go about delivering food with his baby to garner sympathy online, the South China Morning Post reported.
The man, who has been identified only by his surname, Yu, and who goes by @qianyibaobei on Douyin, claimed on social media that the child's mother had abandoned them. In all his videos, he writes in large font: “She does not have a mother.” He shared more than 100 such videos, urging people to "like" them so that he could earn from live-streaming sales and take care of his daughter’s livelihood.
In one such video, Yu, dressed in the uniform of an app-based food delivery service claimed that he delivered 43 orders alongside and earned 300 yuan (about Rs 3,500) in a single day, so he could buy her daughter nice food.
The police, however, found out that Yu has been “sadfishing” his viewers. He is neither a delivery agent nor a single father, and that child's mother still “lives happily” with them. They also discovered that he had bought the delivery uniforms online.
The police stated they have penalised Yu for disturbing public order but did not disclose further details. In China, the punishment for intentionally disturbing public order by spreading rumours can result in up to 10 days of detention and a 500-yuan (Rs 5,900) fine.
This, however, is not the first time that an influencer in China has been penalised for "sadfishing". Earlier this year, a 21-year-old woman with about 40 lakh followers was sentenced to 11 months in jail and fined 80,000 yuan (about Rs 9.3 lakh) for pretending to be poor and fooling people on social media with posts on her impoverished lifestyle.
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