The official Weibo account of Beijing Toutiao, an outlet under a media conglomerate controlled by the Beijing branch of the Communist Youth League, shared a notice from a police account about the detention of a Ms. Liu, who disregarded an October 29 order to quarantine at home and continued about her life in Beijing. On November 2, Ms. Liu tested positive for COVID-19. Police then charged her with violating laws regarding the transmission of infectious diseases. Beijing Toutiao attached the hashtag “Beijing Woman Causes 2,700 People To Be Temporarily Quarantined” above the post. The comment section soon filled with criticism about naming and shaming the woman, with some likening it to the Cultural Revolution-era practice of parading supposed political enemies through the streets with placards identifying their “crimes.”
Weibo user @毕达哥拉斯远房亲戚 (which translates as “Pythagoras’ distant relative”) expressed their disagreement with the post by offering this riposte to the hashtag: “Beijing Man Causes 1.4 Billion People To Be Quarantined Long-Term,” an obvious reference to Xi Jinping.
Soon after, censors deleted the account. Searches for @毕达哥拉斯远房亲戚 no longer return results, and clicking on the original Weibo page link generates a pop-up message indicating that the user does not exist. Another netizen, riffing on @毕达哥拉斯远房亲戚’s comment, wrote, “Beijing Man responsible for the deletion of 1.4 million Weibo accounts.”