Chinese police detain man suspected of making fake news about train crash and spreading it online
Published Date – Mon 08 May 23 11:30pm
Beijing: Chinese police have detained a man suspected of creating fake news about a train crash and using artificial intelligence technology to spread “fabricated information” online and post it to multiple accounts, according to reports, in a Chinese arrest for abusing ChatGPT the first person.
A suspect surnamed Hong was detained for “using artificial intelligence technology to fabricate false and untrue information,” police in northwestern Gansu province said in a statement on Sunday.
The case first came to the attention of the cyber unit of the county public security bureau when they discovered a fake news article claiming nine people were killed in a local train accident on April 25, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Monday. .
Kandong cybersecurity officers found the article posted simultaneously by more than 20 accounts on Baijiahao, a blogging platform run by Chinese search engine giant Baidu.
It said the stories had received more than 15,000 hits by the time they were brought to the attention of authorities.
The Gansu provincial public security department said Hong was suspected of “picking quarrels and provoking troubles,” which generally carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. But in cases deemed particularly serious, offenders could be sentenced to 10 years in prison, with additional penalties, The Washington Post reported.
It said it was the first time the public had learned of an arrest by Chinese authorities since Beijing’s first regulation governing the use of the “deep face swap” technique went into effect in January.
The police said they traced the article to a company owned by suspect Hong, which operates a personal media platform registered in Shenzhen, southern China’s Guangdong province. About 10 days later, a team of police officers searched Hong’s home and his computer and detained him.
Hong admitted to bypassing Baijiahao’s double-checking feature to publish articles on multiple accounts he obtained, the statement said. It said he imported elements of social stories popular in China over the past few years into ChatGPT to quickly produce different versions of the same fake story and uploaded them to his Baijiahao account.
While ChatGPT cannot be used directly with Chinese IP addresses, Chinese users can still access its service if they have a reliable VPN connection.
Chinese IT outlets are experimenting with their version of ChatGPT after Microsoft and Google announced their innovation.
China closely monitors its social media, particularly Sina Weibo, which has more than 592 million users, through the Great Firewall to ensure there is no critical content targeting the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).
China’s top internet watchdog has long worried that the unfettered development and use of deep synthesis technology could lead to its use in criminal activities such as online fraud or defamation.
As ChatGPT has become popular in recent months, Chinese law enforcement agencies have repeatedly expressed doubts about the technology, and even issued warnings.
Among the first comments from Chinese security agencies about the chatbot, Beijing police in February specifically warned the public to be wary of “rumors” generated by ChatGPT, according to the Post.
