Beijing was hit with some rather nasty air last week after a sandstorm caused the AQI to jump to 905.
But one Weibo user noticed something was a little off with one of the pollution readings Thursday afternoon, sharing his findings online.
Posting photos of what appeared to be a water cannon next to an air quality monitor at Olympic Sports Center, the user questioned: "Is the data false?"
The user also shared photos of the AQI in that particular spot compared with the rest of the city's. The differences were striking, with the area around Olmypic Sports Center producing a reading of 528 while the rest of the city was averaging 699.
The post was then picked up by a popular Weibo account, garnering over 20,000 shares and 6,000 comments since Thursday afternoon.
"My first thought was, this wasn't very effective," read one of the most popular comments on the post.
"Shameless," wrote one netizen.
The city's Bureau for Environmental Protection has since responded to the outrage, saying that its data was "accurate, reliable and truthful" and stating that it has a "zero tolerance" policy towards AQI data manipulation. They also said they're launching an investigation into the case.
This is not the first time officials have come under fire for accusations of tampering with air quality data. In November 2016, five Xi'an officials were arrested after they were busted for stuffing cotton into pollution monitors and adjusting computer data.
READ MORE: Officials Busted for Stuffing Cotton in AQI Monitors to Improve Data in Xi'an
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