Thread by @WilliamYang120

“Since Jan. 28, the story of the chained woman who appeared in the video has continued to grow in #China, evading numerous censors both digital and human.” apnews.com/article/winter…

“Even as the original accounts that shared the video disappeared and censors on social media platforms deleted articles and hashtags, amateur sleuths kept the story alive online. Offline, former investigative journalists went reporting on the scene.”

“For this incident to have gotten this much attention, it’s only because of netizens calling attention to it that it hasn’t sunk,” said Chase Zhao, an English teacher who has been following the case closely.

“Days before the Lunar New Year holiday began on Feb. 1, a video spread online from a village in Feng county, located in Jiangsu province on the coast. It showed a woman with a chain around her neck.”

“The chain wasn’t the subject of the video. A blogger had visited the village to show her as an example of a member of a poor rural family that would benefit from donations.”

“In the video, he offers her a jacket, asking if she’s cold. Her response is unclear The weather outside is zero degrees Celsius (32 Fahrenheit), according to the video, and she is wearing a dirty pink sweatshirt.”

“He puts a child’s jacket on her. He does not address the chain. Another video by the same blogger shows an interview with the woman’s husband, who proudly says he has eight children with his wife.”

“On Jan. 28, the county government’s propaganda office said the woman had not been trafficked and was married. She was chained, it said, because of mental health issues. In another statement shortly after, they said she’d been homeless.”

“Later, the statement changed. The county government said the woman’s name was “Xiaohuamei,” or Little Plum Blossom, and that she had been brought to Jiangsu for medical treatment from a remote part of Yunnan province near Myanmar.”

“On Feb. 10, the city government issued a statement saying it had arrested three people, including Sang, Sang’s husband and the father of the eight children — the first two for human trafficking, the father for illegal detention.”

“Two women, known only by their online aliases Quanquan and Wuyi, traveled to Feng county to help Little Plum Blossom. Based on their video and audio posts, they drove around, writing slogans on their car with lipstick to publicize the case while talking to people about the issue

“The two never met Plum Blossom, and were barred from entering a hospital where she had been taken when they tried to bring her a bouquet of sunflowers. Later, the bouquet they left behind appeared in a short video segment from state broadcaster CCTV.”

“When the two stopped posting, others online stepped in asking people to call the police station to find out what happened, fearing they were detained.”

“Zhao, the English teacher, said she tried calling the police station in Feng County to ask about the two women. A women’s rights activist in Beijing who declined to be named confirmed Friday that they had been detained and were released.”

“Meanwhile, two former investigative journalists, known by their pen names Ma Sa and Tie Mu, set out to the village in Yunnan that Feng county officials had said the woman came from.”

“According to an article they published on WeChat, they interviewed village residents who confirmed that someone once called Little Plum Blossom did live there and had been married before. They also found her sister. But they couldn’t confirm if she was the chained woman.”

“By this point, many people were chiming in. One Weibo user employed professional editing software to compare faces, grabbing 900,000 views.”

“A WeChat user looked up court records of women in Fengxian county who had been trafficked. Another former journalist posted a marriage license, purportedly from Little Plum Blossom, that someone sent to him — and raised an age discrepancy.”