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“Fat Cat,” the online nickname of Liu Jie, a 21-year-old Chinese gamer founded in Chongqing, in the southwest of the country, who committed suicide on April 11, 2024 (link archived).
Soon after, social media posts from one claiming to be the player’s sister claimed he had died from a damaged facility and accused her friend of scamming him.
These posts have sparked immense pity online, with the corresponding hashtags on Weibo racking up billions of views.
However, Chongqing police said on May 20 that their investigation had not found that Liu’s friend had scammed him (link archived).
Police added that Liu’s sisters had paid to publicize his posts about his partner, prompting harassment against him.
The screenshot also shared similar false claims in Indonesian-language social media posts, adding TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and short-form video platform SnackVideo, racking up more than 470,000 views.
But keyword searches in official Chinese advertisements did not uncover any mention of the player (archived link).
The screenshot shows a manipulated news report from CNBC Indonesia.
A keyword search on CNBC Indonesia’s online page (date, time, and signature listed in the screenshot) did not uncover any articles about Xi Jinping that marked “World Loyal Men Day. “
The details, however, match those of a meeting between the Chinese leader and French President Emmanuel Macron (archived link).
Its headline was: “Xi Jinping-Macron assembly has been held, what about China and France?”
Below is a screenshot comparing the edited article (left) and the original CNBC Indonesia report (right), with the corresponding main points tagged via AFP:
The photo of Xi in the circulating screenshot taken through the news firm Reuters in 2016 (archived link).
CNBC Indonesia’s editorial secretary, Dara Ayu Lestari, told AFP on May 16 that the screenshot circulating had been “altered” from CNBC Indonesia’s report on Xi and Macron’s meeting.