Micro-blogging websites were frozen in China for two days after rumors and posts about a coup in Beijing were discovered by the government. While the reports were speculated as being rumors, it appears from the BBC's article that rumors spread around the Chinese internet because there is no mainstream outlet for rumors to thrive such as in America. Furthermore, Beijing appears to be having a difficult time appointing top government officials as it reshuffles its government this year.
I touched upon this tabloid sensation briefly in my research - that a lack of gossip tabloids in China fuels the internet as becoming a space where rumors begin and grow uncontrolled. The state's media bans tabloid and sensationalist gossip from being published, but it finds a home on these web forums where those who in the past have been targets of the HFSE gain notoriety and "web space" as quickly as Hollywood film stars. And this phenomenon because all the more dangerous because discerning truth from fiction on the internet can be near impossible.
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