Black PR Duo Arrested Amid Online Rumor Crackdown
Posted by Josh Rudolph | Aug 22, 2013
Yesterday, news surfaced on the arrest of two men for “deliberately fabricating rumors” online and “illegally obtaining benefits.” Qin Zhihui and Yang Xiuyu, the two men currently in detention, were two major players in China’s “black PR” industry: a thriving trade of online reputation management often utilized by businesses, celebrities, and officials to bolster their images or harm those of their competitors. A post at Danwei looks at Chinese-language coverage of the recently arrested duo to
Qin and Yang have since March 2010 headed a lucrative “black PR” business called Beijing Erma Interactive Marketing and Planning Company 北京尔玛互动营销策划有限公司 (no website for which could be found), one of the over 15,000 Chinese “water army” (