China arrests woman for defamatory comments about Olympic athletes

Police in Beijing said they had arrested a woman for posting defamatory online comments about athletes and coaches in the wake of the women’s singles table tennis final at the Paris Olympics.
The 29-year-old woman, surnamed He, “maliciously fabricated information and openly slandered others,” the Public Security Bureau of Beijing’s Daxing district said in a statement on the X-like Weibo platform on Tuesday.
The statement did not say which athletes and coaches had been targeted and the case remains under investigation, the police said.
The arrest followed the women’s singles table tennis finals in Paris on Sunday, police said.
That match saw Chen Meng take gold in an all-China affair against Sun Yingsha.
While Sun received enthusiastic cheers from spectators during the match, Chen was subjected to boos from the crowd and abuse online.
China’s Ministry of Public Security referred to the match as it vowed on Wednesday to “severely crack down on chaotic sport-related ‘fan circles’.”
The ministry’s statement, reported by state media, urged fans to “watch the game in a civilized manner, discuss objectively, and respect coaches, athletes, and judges.”
Weibo said in a statement on Sunday it had deleted more than 12,000 posts and banned more than 300 accounts following the incident.
It urged users to “keep their focus on the court and comment rationally.”
Among the deleted posts were those attacking Chen, according to Freeweibo, a website that monitors comments removed by the platform.
“The whole country was hoping for Sun Yingsha to win the women’s singles gold, where’s your sense of justice?” one said of Chen.
Some posts that showed a Sun fan in Paris appearing to raise their middle finger towards Chen were also taken down.
The trending hashtag “Don’t let fan culture erode Chinese table tennis” had gained more than 200 million views on Weibo by Sunday.
Many other users criticized fans in the stadium and expressed support for Chen.
“Anyone uninformed would have thought Yingsha was playing against a foreign opponent,” one comment read.
Weibo said before the Games it had deleted 8,200 comments and blocked more than 500 accounts for “abusive and slanderous” comments about athletes, urging users to cheer for all those competing for China in Paris.
China is the undisputed powerhouse of table tennis and has dominated in Paris.