PR director at Chinese Twitter analogue Weibo detained on bribery and fraud charges

The director of public relations at Sina Weibo – China's equivalent to Twitter – was arrested on suspicion of bribery and fraud, Chinese state media reported on Tuesday. State-owned Global Times said PR exec Mao Taotao was fired and blocked from future employment with the Sina Corporation microblogging website. An internal …

[KarMann]

Missed, or misdirected, opportunities

'Facing the temptation of interests, he lost his principles and fell behind the bottom line.'

Shouldn't that line have been reserved for a corrupt financial official, instead of a social media PR person?

[Youngone]

Re: Missed, or misdirected, opportunities

I faced the temptation of interests one time, but when I lost my principles I fell behind the couch.

Actually, now I come to think about it, I may have been drinking.

[elsergiovolador]

PR

China's government has increasingly cracked down on big tech companies and is always enormously intolerant of corruption.

I doubt this has anything to with corruption, just classic apparatchiks in-fighting dressed to be palatable to the casual western reader. However you wrap a turd, inside it is still a turd.

[lglethal]

"he lost his principles..."

Well yes, clearly they lost their principles. I mean they worked in PR after all.

[Pascal Monett]

"China's government [..] is always enormously intolerant of corruption"

That's funny, I've heard I can't count how many tales of how companies wanting to implement in China had to literally pay they way to get things done in any semblance of a reasonable timeframe.

Has that really changed ?

[tiggity]

Re: "China's government [..] is always enormously intolerant of corruption"

No, its not changed (unless its a very, very recent change) - backhanders all the way down when I was last chatting with friends who work heavily in China / with Chinese companies - they were still paying plenty of bribes in July (last time we chatted).

It's govt firmly letting big tech companies know that govt in charge.

As long as your corruption fits within state sanctioned corruption model (& the right people get their kickbacks) then business as usual .... except for occasional purges of someone high up & then their corruption / kickback chain either gets handed over to someone else or a persecution of the chain members occurs (when it can get nasty).

[lglethal]

Re: "China's government [..] is always enormously intolerant of corruption"

No, it hasnt changed, the sentence is just missing the addendum.

"China's government [..] is always enormously intolerant of corruption UNLESS they're a member of the Communist Party, who is in good standing with President Xi, and remembers to pay a portion of their corrupt income up the chain."

I guess the author just felt that addendum went without saying...

[Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells]

I wonder what he really did. Criticising Pooh Bear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada

> 'Facing the temptation of interests, he lost his principles and fell behind the bottom line.'

They probably just realised he has relatives in Canada.

Michael Spavor: Canadian jailed for 11 years in China on spying charges

Canadian citizen loses appeal against death penalty

[Winkypop]

Totalitarian regimes

Like Ouroboros, they eventually end up eating their own tail.