Political Sex Scandals: Catching On Internationally?

Yahoo! News:

Now that Anthony Weiner has resigned from the House of Representatives, the frenzy surrounding the sexually explicit messages he sent women on Twitter is beginning to die down. But similar scandals are cropping up elsewhere in the world. It's an age, as The New York Times put it yesterday, when the Internet has become "the place where anonymity dies."

Let's start in China. Earlier this week we learned from the Guangzhou Daily, visuals and all, that nude photos of Liu Ning, a district official in Guangzhou, were circulating on Chinese social networks after he posted them to the Twitter-like Sina Weibo during what he described as an online chat, and that local authorities were investigating the incident. Then we found out that Xie Zhiqiang, the health bureau director in the city of Liyang in Jiangsu Province, is also under investigation for similar behavior. According to the Xinhua news service, authorities have Xie's flirtations on Sina Weibo with a married woman with whom he appeared to be having an affair, broaching topics ranging from hotel dates to the illegal redemption of personal expenses. "Amazingly," writes Li Chen at Penn Olson, "even after their Weibo chats attracted thousands of followers, they had no idea that Weibo was a public place, and that messages were visible to anyone. They thought it was a private QQ-like instant message service!" In fact, when Xie, who has confirmed that the account was his, was contacted by a local newspaper, he asked, incredulously, "How can you view our messages on Weibo? It is impossible, isn't it?" The Chinese website SHM.com.cn posted the screenshot of Xie's chats on the right.

Read the whole story: Yahoo! News

Comments

[D-Barger]

11:15 AM on 06/23/2011

Someone reported this as "news," it got popular (thanks to the people), and so other "reporters" took the path of least resistance and began a personal crusade against politicians.

They should just do their jobs. I don't care who they sleep with, why, how many, etc. I just don't care.

[RationalCaliGirl]

03:35 AM on 06/23/2011

Give me a break HP! As if Weiner was the first person ever to have cyber-sex. He's not the first or the last, only the latest public figure to get caught.

[StrawHat]

08:17 PM on 06/22/2011

Men are dogs. Men have always been dogs. Now they're dogs before an international audience. Sigh.

[D-Barger]

11:14 AM on 06/23/2011

And women facilitate this. Don't tell me that none of these women knew that Weiner was married. They ALL knew, and they didn't care.