Ethics debate after Chinese commentator secretly records caller’s complaint and posts audio online resulting in harassment
- Sima Nan is a famous online commentator and journalist in mainland China and is known for his nationalistic and populist internet broadcasts
- Now he is at the centre of an ethics debate after secretly recording then releasing a phone call with a woman who disagreed with him
A Chinese nationalist commentator and journalist is under fire for secretly recording a phone conversation with a woman who disagreed with his views and then posting it which resulted in online attacks against the woman from his followers.
Sima Nan, famous online in mainland China for his nationalistic and populist video broadcasts, has been embroiled in controversy after he made the supposedly private conversation public last week without the consent of the woman, who had called to criticise the content of one of his recent programmes.
The caller, a woman surnamed Wang, who studies literature and is a fan of Chinese novelist and Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan, argued during the call that Sima was misleading his audience in a video commentary posted in late May where he singled out one particular remark by Mo.
The 30-minute phone call of the pair debating Mo’s literary views was secretly recorded and shared on Sima’s multiple social media accounts on Thursday last week, leading many of his followers to attack the woman who was publicly identified.
In a Weibo post with the audio recording attached, he wrote that Wang was: “Angry and aggressive and started the conversation with criticism over ‘brainless patriotism’. She intended to teach me a lesson”.
But as their conversation went on, she became “deflated” by his arguments, he claimed.
He ended the post with a sexist comment about women’s appearance and intelligence: “To girls who look good and are smart, don’t major in literature.”