News that maligned socialite Guo Meimei admitted involvement in World Cup gambling and working as a call girl stoked discussion on and off the Internet. Netizens complained that the media devoted too much attention to covering the young woman’s predicament with less airtime given to coverage of a factory explosion in Jiangsu and an earthquake in Yunnan.
Other Chinese Internet users published artistic interpretations of Guo’s latest tribulations. The censors issued a warning to media outlets to cool down coverage on the Guo Meimei story and steer away from mention of the Red Cross. CDT revisits Guo’s connection to the Red Cross with a word sourced from the Grass Mud Horse Lexicon. Search terms on Weibo, linking Guo to a Politburo Standing Committee member, were blocked.
In other news, censors stepped in to block discussion about a ten-province investigation into “naked officials,” or government officials who send their family and assets abroad.
Netizens expressed mixed reactions to a CCTV series that will air a 48 episode special about Deng Xiaoping.
Finally, a poem translated by CDT and said to be penned by a migrant mother for her child at the start of the Beijing school year.
