Man posed as prostitute on Weibo, banned
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Xinhua, September 29, 2011
China's most popular microblog service provider on Thursday permanently deleted the account of a self-proclaimed "high-profile" female prostitute who was later discovered by police to be a 31-year man seeking online fame.
Sina.com, the company that hosts the popular Weibo microblogging service, also suspended the accounts of six other users for two weeks for spreading rumors regarding the supposed prostitute.
Using the pseudonym "Ruoxiaoan1," the man surnamed Lin posted 401 entries on his Weibo account starting from January, fabricating stories about working as a female prostitute in Hangzhou, the capital city of east China's Zhejiang Province.
Police said Lin took cues from foreign literature while writing his "prostitute diary" in order to attract attention from netizens. Lin is actually employed as an editor in the real world.
Prostitution is illegal in China.
Lin was fined 500 yuan (78.5 U.S. dollars) in accordance with China's Internet regulations for disturbing public order. Lin apologized for his actions, police said.
On his microblog, Lin depicted himself as a 22-year-old woman who "accidentally" lost her virginity and became a sex worker. His microblog account was followed by more than 250,000 users, including several prominent Chinese Internet celebrities. Some of his entries were reposted as many as 10,000 times.
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