Shanghai police arrest three for AI-generated disinformation campaign
Shanghai police arrested three people for operating a network that used AI software to generate and publish over 300,000 false posts across more than 500 social media accounts to drive traffic and monetize engagement. The operation, which began in February 2025, published over 10,000 posts daily and earned the suspects over 40,000 yuan before being shut down in April.
What happened
In early March 2025, a story circulated widely online claiming that Huashan Hospital's former dean Zhang Mingyuan had died in a hospital corridor from appendicitis that was not treated timely. Shanghai police investigated and found that Huashan Hospital had no former dean or employee named Zhang Mingyuan.
Three suspects, Wang, Guo, and Shi, established a workshop in February 2025 and controlled over 500 social media accounts. They used AI software to automatically generate and publish false posts keyed to trending topics such as celebrity gossip and lifestyle content, publishing over 10,000 posts daily and accumulating over 300,000 false posts total, earning over 40,000 yuan illegally.
According to Wang's statement, the Zhang Mingyuan story was AI-generated. They were unaware of the existence of Huashan Hospital or the person before publishing. Their workflow involved collecting high-engagement content and using AI to rewrite it in bulk, with prompts like 'make the first sentence attention-grabbing.' Wang stated they received approximately 5 yuan per 10,000 views.
Reported impact
The false information caused serious negative effects on the online environment. The team's behavior was motivated by an intent to 'nurture accounts' and gain followers for subsequent monetization through livestream sales.
Police stated the behavior represents a degradation of 'traffic economy' through AI-generated false, deceptive, and harmful information that severely damaged the network ecosystem.
Index analysis
Wang acknowledged that while the team was occasionally penalized by platforms for spreading rumors about a female celebrity's death, they continued with low expectations of punishment. The accounts and content have since been removed.
Police noted they have established mechanisms with major platforms to promptly report problems and continue cracking down on network rumors to create a clear and orderly online environment.
Governance controls
The three suspects were taken into criminal compulsory measures by Shanghai police on suspicion of unlawful use of information networks. Relevant illegal accounts were banned.
As of the incident, Shanghai police had broken 15 online water army cases and arrested 38 suspects through a special operation to crack down on network rumors.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.