Celebrity bloggers - confession and contrition(2)

He soon began to schmoozing with the "big Vs" and their millions of followers, including Xue Manzi, the Weibo name of Xue. "V" is a Weibo tag for users verified as genuine.

Dong visited Xue at his Beijing home in early 2012. "We had a nice chat, like old friends," said Xue. "He asked me to invest in his company, but I refused as I thought his company too small."

But Xue said he would like to "cooperate" with Dong and promised to retweet Dong's posts to help Dong and his product. Dong's posts recommended by Xue and other big Vs are indeed, more widely read. Dong's posts were often garbled or based on arguments without definite answers.

In one post, he said China's tap water contains contraceptive drugs and such drugs are widely used in food, animal feeds and fisheries. He ended the post by saying that, "general water cleaners are unable to filter the drugs," implying that only his water filter has such abilities.

After he released the post, Xue immediately retweeted it, and it was then forwarded several thousands times in a few hours. The media also reported the case based on what Dong had written. As a result, citizens rushed to buy various water filters, with some even choosing to drink bottled water and never use tap water again.

Dong said his post was based on extracts from academic theses, however, the first author of the work said Dong had totally distorted his conclusions, and Beijing Waterworks Group confirmed that such drugs have never been detected in tap water.

Though Dong and Xue deleted the post after it was shown to be unfounded, their acts have had serious consequences for social order, according to the police.

To kick up more dust, Dong churned out rumor after rumor - "excessive lead in pork in Nanking", "high mercury levels in Zhoushan from tuna and hairtail" - this second post having dire consequences for the fishery industry in Zhoushan.

Xue said that he was very careful when retweeting Dong's posts in the beginning. "I only wrote or reposted things within my professional field. I would not comment on news about which I did not have a knowledge of and I would always investigate the sources of news before retweeting," Xue told reporters in an earlier interview

Gradually Xue became greedy, careless, lazy and unscrupulous, eager to forward almost anything Dong wrote. "Cause on one hand it saved time and on the other I thought I would not be held responsible as I was not the original poster," said Xue.

The talented, if somewhat overhyped, capitalist taught Dong to write exaggerated and eye-catching headlines. "For example, if the original read 'fish bone may cause cerebral injury', I would write 'eating fish makes you an idiot,'" Dong said.

"Nobody reads it if the title does not grab your attention," Xue explained.