Update | Four detained over China Uniqlo sex tape as it emerges video was filmed in April
The steamy video shows a couple apparently having sex inside a fitting room of Beijing’s Uniqlo flagship store
Chinese police have detained four people over a sex tape shot in a Beijing clothing store that went viral online.
Those detained included a 19-year-old man who uploaded the video – showing a mostly clothed man and a naked woman apparently having sex in the changing room of a Uniqlo store in the capital – on Weibo, Beijing police said.
Three others were detained for “spreading obscene messages”, police said, without giving further details.
Police said they were “still dealing with” the couple suspected of filming the video, but did not mention if they were being held. Mainland media had earlier reported that police had detained the couple on Wednesday night, just hours after the footage went viral.
The video was taken in April but was not uploaded online until the couple shared it with their friends via WeChat recently, police said.
The clip then spread rapidly on mainland social media, with scores of people taking selfies outside the Uniqlo outlet, some mimicking poses seen in the footage.
The police investigation was focused on who published the “unsavoury” video and whether it was a publicity stunt by the Japanese clothing chain, reported Beijing-based daily The Mirror. Uniqlo told the paper their staff members were not among those detained.
China’s online regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, said late on Wednesday that distributing the footage was “against socialist core values”. The administration ordered senior managers of Weibo’s operator Sina and WeChat’s owner Tencent to cooperate in an investigation, it said.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
