How Does Fang Shimin The Rumormonger Monger a Rumor?

——An Open Letter to New York Post

To:

mark.hodge@the-sun.co.uk

tips@nypost.com

online@nypost.com

letters@nypost.com
studios@nypost.com

Dear Editors of New York Post,

On Dec. 29, 2021, your website published an article, COVID rule-breakers in China forced to parade through streets, authored by Mr. Mark Hodge of The Sun. Besides the slight difference in the titles, however, there are two major discrepancies between what you published and the original post on The Sun’s website: you gave credit of the two photographs in the article to “@fangshimin/Twitter,” and provided a hyperlink to one of Fang Shimin’s tweet, while in the original webpage, the credit went to “Twitter” only, and no hyperlink to Fang’s tweet was provided.

The Secret is out

In the afternoon of Dec. 29, 2021, New York Post re-published an article originally appeared on the website of The Sun. However, the article on NYP’s website differs from the original in two major ways: it credited Fang Shimin, a well-known rumormonger, as their source of information, and gave a hyperlink to Fang’s tweet.

Fang was extremely escalated about the promotion:

“I have been wondering why I am suddenly followed by a group of non-Chinese Twitter users today, it turns out that New York Post used a video clip which I tweeted.” (Link: 8:54 PM · Dec 29, 2021.)

Yes, even though Mr. Fang claimed that he had studied in the U. S. for dozens of years, since 1990, he is still incapable of tweeting in English, therefore almost the entire body of his followers on Twitter are Chinese. As a matter of fact, Fang schedules his daily activities according to Beijing Time, so he could interact with the internet users in China live, even though he resides in California, in a mansion he purchased with cash he swindled in China. So, my questions to you are:

How did you find Fang’s post?

Do any of you who modified Mr. Hodge’s article read Chinese?

The thing is, ever since fleeing china with his family in October 2014, Fang has been the most vocal Chinese or China-hater on Twitter, simply because his secret bosses in the government finally gave him up, which essentially made him having nothing to gain but everything to lose in China. Therefore, he would intentionally manufacture rumors against China and Chinese, and then spread the rumors as much as he is capable of. The fact is, in 2012, Fang was voted “The person who spreads the most rumors and slanders and frams the most people on weibo.com” by more than 22 thousands of weibo.com users. The only difference is, at that time, Fang was the favorite son of the government and he was targeting certain Chinese individuals; and now, Fang has lost everything in China so he is targeting every Chinese and the entire country. Yes, he regards Beijing as his battleground and San Diego his hometown. That’s why he is known among Chinese people as Rumormonger Fang. So, how does The Rumormonger monger a rumor? The way he fooled you, if you were indeed fooled, serves as an excellent example.

In the early morning of Dec. 28, 2021, a Twitter user who calls himself “TragedyInChina1” and claims that he “records and tracks various tragedies and the hottest frontier news and events in China” posted three video clips with the following message:

“At Dongxing Port in Baise, Guangxi, smugglers were posted big-character posters and paraded in public! The commoners said it was they who made everyone quarantined! #guangxi #baise #smuggling #epidemic #CulturalRevolution.” (links: 4:33 AM · Dec 28, 2021, 4:33 AM · Dec 28, 2021, 4:34 AM · Dec 28, 2021.)

The Source

In the early morning of Dec. 28, 2021, Twitter user “TragedyInChina1,” who is probably one of Fang’s major sources for anti-China information, posted three video clips showing Jingxi City’s Sham Parade. The verbal messages are the same: the offenders are human smugglers who smuggled the (covid-19 infected) foreigners into Jingxi City, which led to the local lockdown.

11 hours after “TragedyInChina1,” apparently after editing the 3 video clips into one, Fang, who habitually steals information from other China-haters but never gives credit to them, posted the video clip with the following message:

“Cultural Revolution version 2.0: sham parade, happened in Jingxi, Guangxi the day before yesterday.” (Link: 3:19 PM · Dec 28, 2021.)

Comparing with the original posts, Fang intentionally omitted the words “smugglers” or “smuggling,” obviously meant to mislead other people to believe the event was about “zero Covid lockdown” and the offenders were merely “Omicron rule-breakers,” because that’s what he had been doing for the last two years. And this time, he finally succeeded in catch a big fish like you.

The Rumormonger is actually a fisherman

After stealing a piece of information on the internet, Mr. Fang would normally process it into a much more malicious and vicious rumor, which he believes would hurt China badly, and post it online as bait. After that, he would send group emails containing the bait to as many western journalists as possible, hoping some of them will bite the bait. Judged by his posts, Fang’s success rate is extremely low, indicating his subzero credibility.

The fact is, at the beginning of the video clip, the red banner on the leading truck says “The On-site Punishment and Prevention Activities for Border-related Cases in 2021 in Jingxi City.” That’s why the report by Newsweek, which cited TragedyInChina1’s post as their source, clearly stated that the “Rule Breakers” were “who were caught smuggling foreign nationals across the border into China in violation of the country's COVID-19 restrictions.” Fang, however, knew the fact that most of his contacts are illiterate in Chinese, so he intentionally hid that key information from them, which might be the reason Mr. Hodge said the “Rule Breakers” were “who are alleged to have flouted the country’s strict lockdown rules.” Human smuggling or trafficking cross the border is a serious crime, punishable for imprisonment up to five years in China, up to 20 years in the U. S. In other words, the so called “rule-breakers” are outlaws and felons; the punishment they received is way gentle than the harm they caused. If not fooled by Fang, what are you fussing about?

Evilness

The western media used to promote Fang Shimin as a “fraud fighter,” deliberately ignoring the fact that the most prominent feature of his so called “fraud fighting” is his selectiveness: he’d select his targets according to his secret agenda, select his audience to his own advantage, select his weapons he thought most lethal, and select his evidence he believes most damaging. Even so, none of the fraud cases he has fought in the past two decades, up to 2,000 cases according his own estimate, was uncontroversial. On the other hand, Fang himself has been convicted more than a hundred times as a plagiarist beyond any doubt, and he is currently pursued by a group of his formal donors in a court in California for money swindling. The above photos are the screenshots from the video Fang posted, revealing the key information selectively hidden by Fang, i. e. the “parade” had minimal relation with “Omicron.”

The funny thing is, even though it appears that you know nothing about Fang, Fang does know you fairly well. Here are the comments he made on you in the second half of the October of 2020, weeks before the U. S. general election:

“Trump’s October Surprise is that his lawyer Giuliani approached Murdoch’s tabloid ‘New York Post’ to explode the information about Biden’s son? Wasn’t the information provided by the Russian intelligence service? He should have approached the Fox News and the Wall Street Journal run by Murdoch first, right? It seems that even Fox cares about their face after all. Look at the excitement of Trump's son who is asking everyone to believe him that Biden's son is the most corrupt person in history. Wow, he thinks his credit is worth of something.” (Link: 7:20 PM · Oct 15, 2020.)

“The owner of the computer repair shop who claimed to have found Biden’s son’s e-mails from the laptop that was sent for repair is an avid Trump’s Fan. He spoke inconsistently during the interview and kept changing his stories, and he revealed his secret that he works for Giuliani, that’s why he ended the interview in a hurry. Only a gossip tabloid like ‘New York Post’ would take this story seriously. Now, Trump’s Fans are touting ‘New York Post’ for its long history and high circulation, not a tabloid but a major newspaper.” (Link: 11:39 PM · Oct 15, 2020.)

“This article sums up the American media’s questioning of Biden’s son’s ‘Computer Gate.’ Those with poor English proficiency should read it and understand why only the gossip tabloid ‘New York Post’ would be interested in it. Any media a little bit more serious than NYP think that it is full of loopholes and cannot withstand scrutiny and is not worth reporting. I believe this matter was brought up by the Russian intelligence service to cheer Trump’s Fans up. Are there any gates to Biden's son's ‘computer Gate’?” (Link: 1:42 AM · Oct 16, 2020.)

“The report on Biden’s son’s mail gate by Murdoch’s gossip tabloid ‘New York Post’ was published anonymously, because the reporter who wrote the report thought the content was unreliable so he was unwilling to sign his name. Even a report not believed by its reporter could be published, it's really a gossip tabloid.” (Link: 7:41 PM · Oct 18, 2020.)

“The most trusted ‘major newspaper’ by Trump’s Fans, New York Post, and Fox TV, their ‘CCTV,’ are attacking Face Book for hiring a bunch of Chinese software engineers, who have studied in the U. S., to write programs. Is Exclusion of Chinese the next step? The funny thing is that many Chinese programmers in Silicon Valley are Trump’s Fans.” (Link: 4:23 PM · Oct 22, 2020.)

“The long report by New York Times revealed how the material used to discredit Biden family was obtained. It turned out that long before the ‘exclusive report’ by the gossip tabloid ‘New York Post’ was published, the people affiliated with Guo ‘Country Builder’ had already stated on the Chinese internet that they had obtained three hard drives with ‘criminal evidence’ for Biden family’s corruption, but at that time they said the hard drives were provided by the Chinese source. Giuliani and Bannon discussed the matter at Guo ‘Country Builder’s dinner. So the whole farce has a strong Chinese flavor.” (Link: 11:47 PM · Oct 31, 2020.)

The Gossip Tabloid Lover

For some reasons, Fang has an intense hatred toward Trump, so he’d badmouth all his decisions and policies, except for those he deemed would hurt China and Chinese. Consequently, Fang hates and despises Trump’s Fans, attacking them whenever he got a chance. The above screenshots show Fang’s posts attacking New York Post as a “gossip tabloid,” for the only reason that the “tabloid” supported Trump. However, Fang is over joyous when the “gossip tabloid” used one of his rumormongering posts, because being cited and quoted by western media, tabloid or not, is considered by him his biggest achievement.

It seems that Fang doesn’t know the fact that Mr. Murdoch also owns The Sun.

I’d appreciate if you could answer my initial questions: How did you find Fang’s post? Do any of you read Chinese?

For more information about Fang, you can read the following articles written by me:

Comment on the GlobalPost Report "The Chinese president’s favorite blogger hates America"

Regarding Fang Zhouzi’s Seminar at the University of Washington

Fang Shimin is the Second Piltdown Man Manufactured by the Chinese Haters

Or, you can visit China Academic Integrity Review.

Sincerely yours,

Xin Ge, Ph. D.

Columbia, South Carolina

Rumormonger Fang

On June 13, 2012, a weibo.com user “laoshi2009” launched a survey, asking people to identify the person who had spread the most rumors, had slandered and framed the most people on weibo.com. By the time the survey was closed, more than 25 thousand weibo.com users had made their selection, and Fang was the overwhelming “winner,” leading the runner up (Fang’s closest ally) by 64.5%. Two years later, when the survey result was used as evidence against Fang in a lawsuit in a court in Beijing, Fang said he had no objection to the authenticity of the evidence.