An Internet celebrity from Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture was sentenced to 11 months in prison and fined 80,000 yuan ($11,100) for falsely promoting the goods he sold during a live broadcast, according to the People’s Court of Zhaojue County, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. court.
Starting in 2018, Liangshan Mengyang, whose real surname is Axi, posted a series of short videos online, falsely claiming that he lived in poverty, and live broadcasts in which he burst into tears.
In the video, she claimed that her parents died and she had to drop out of school to care for her younger siblings. The video showed them wearing tattered clothes in a dilapidated adobe house where she said they only had potatoes to eat.
After gaining some followers, she started selling what she calls “local Liangshan” agricultural specialties, such as walnuts and xueyan (the natural sticky secretion of the fat sea plant) through live broadcasts. Snow swallow can be used as a laxative and skin treatment to promote anti-aging.
Her videos became popular, and her number of fans on a short video platform reached a maximum of 3.86 million.
However, when some netizens visited Mengyang’s hometown in Zhaojue Liangshan, they found that her parents were still alive and the family still lived in a house built by the government.
An investigation by the local police in Zhaojue showed that her family has long enjoyed preferential policies and their living conditions are pretty good.
The police also discovered that the products she sold during her live broadcast were not produced in Liangshan.
In May last year, the Liangshan Municipal Administration for Market Regulation launched an investigation into internet celebrities, including Liangshan Mengyang, who claimed to be products from other areas of Liangshan.
Subsequently, the case was handed over to the public security organs for further investigation.
One of the investigation results showed that the police found that in March 2021, Liangshan Mengyang signed a contract with a media company in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
The company is owned by a man surnamed Tang. Since 2021, it has been cultivating Internet celebrities such as Liangshan Mengyang and Liangshan Aze by producing fake videos and creating fake online characters.
It purchases agricultural products and other products at low prices from wholesale markets in Chengdu, and then uses e-commerce platforms and Internet celebrities to sell them as authentic, environmentally friendly Liangshan products. Total sales exceeded 30 million yuan, and the company’s profit exceeded 10 million yuan.
Eight people involved, including Liangshan Mengyang, have been sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment by the Zhaojue County People’s Court.
Tang was sentenced to one year and two months in prison and fined 100,000 yuan.
Liangshan Aze, whose real name is Adi, was sentenced to nine months in prison and fined 40,000 yuan. Five other employees of the company were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than nine months but not more than one year, and fined not less than 20,000 yuan but not more than 80,000 yuan. All his illegal gains were confiscated.
Liangshan authorities said that 457 self-media account holders were punished last year, with 15 accounts permanently closed.