Police act swiftly on online prostitution smear

Three people have been detained for fabricating and spreading rumors that several female teachers from a kindergarten in Qingpu District had been arrested by police for prostitution, local police announced on Friday.

The rumors had been spread online for several days, and police said they found through investigation that they were not true.

A 39-year-old woman surnamed Meng pretended to be an informed source and created the rumors out of thin air on the afternoon of May 8 when she was talking with other people in a WeChat group to attract attention, according to Qingpu District police.

They said Meng told the group that "three teachers of a local kindergarten were arrested for prostitution," "there was someone organizing the teachers for prostitution," and "the teachers did so for a luxury life."

The next day, another woman, Zhang, 32, downloaded photos of teachers from a kindergarten and alleged they were the arrested, further spreading the rumors, police said.

A man, 37, surnamed Gao, who runs a new media account, created an article titled "Teachers from a Shanghai model kindergarten arrested for prostitution" with an artificial intelligence application on May 11, without verification of the information, police added. He posted it on his account to attract viewers, which triggered a lot of discussion online.

Police said the rumors had a serious negative social impact.

All three have been detained by Qingpu police, and the investigation is ongoing.