After a video of a couple getting frisky in a Uniqlo changing room went viral on the Chinese Internet this week, the heads of China’s biggest social media companies have been summoned for a dressing down of their own by the country’s Internet watchdogs.
Declaring the NSFW video not safe for the Chinese Internet, online censors were quick to take down copies and screenshots of the sex tape on Wednesday – but not quick enough to stop it spreading among the millions of users of Tencent’s messaging app WeChat and Sina’s micro-blogging platform Weibo. (If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to be an Internet porn scrubber in China, these are the requirements.)
According to CCTV News:
“On Wednesday afternoon, an official from China’s Cyberspace Administration summoned executives from Sina and Tencent over the incident, asking them take responsibility for its posting and to cooperate with the police for further investigation.”
The gatekeepers of China’s digital decency added, “The viral circulation of the obscene fitting room video on the Internet has severely violated socialist core values.”
Meanwhile, the scene of the crime has become something of a tourist attraction, with people snapping selfies and recreating poses from the sex tape outside Uniqlo’s flagship store in Beijing’s Sanlitun shopping hub.
Although some suspect the Japanese clothing brand engineered the video as a marketing ploy, Uniqlo issued a statement asking customers to “abide by social ethics, maintain social justice and correctly and properly use the fitting spaces provided by Uniqlo stores.”
[Image via The Guardian]
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