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On July 2, a picture posted by the so-called "NetEase News" with the main content being "Shanghai's finances are tight and it has to borrow 10 billion from temples" spread rapidly on major online platforms, attracting widespread attention from netizens and becoming a hot topic.

Relevant departments reported that this was pure fabrication. The Municipal Party Committee's Cyberspace Affairs Office immediately contacted reporters from Shanghai Radio and Television's "Verification" column and Shangguan News' "Shanghai Internet Rumor Refuting" column to verify the situation and refute the rumor. At the same time, NetEase News also stated that it had not released relevant information after verification. The Changning Branch of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau immediately filed a case and launched an investigation in accordance with the law, and arrested the criminal suspect Sun Moumin who fabricated the rumor in another province on the evening of July 3.

After investigation, it was found that the suspect Sun Minmin mainly engaged in various business activities in the Yangtze River Delta region. When interacting with others, he often boasted that he could get "inside information" to create a persona of being "well-informed" and "well-connected". In order to make his persona more credible, Sun Minmin also learned to use image editing software, splicing his own hearsay information with the headlines of well-known media and sending them to others to verify the reliability of his source of information.

On July 1, Sun Moumin fabricated the story that "Shanghai's finances were tight and it had to borrow 10 billion from temples." He searched the names of some temples in Shanghai on the Internet, then used software to add the "NetEase" logo to create a rumor picture, which he sent to his friends via WeChat, eventually causing the rumor to spread and creating a bad social impact.

At present, the criminal suspect Sun Moumin has been approved for arrest by the procuratorate in accordance with the law on suspicion of provoking trouble, and the case is under further investigation.

The police said that the Internet is not a lawless place. The public security organs will pursue legal responsibility in accordance with the law for any illegal acts of arbitrarily fabricating false information or even creating rumors through video editing, graphic and text splicing, etc. If the circumstances are serious and constitute a crime, criminal liability will be pursued in accordance with the law.