THREE employees with a local news media company were each given five days of administrative detention as punishment for spreading online rumors of sky-high compensation for villagers in Shuibei, a soon-to-be-demolished urban village in Luohu District, according to Bao’an District police.

    Villagers in Shuibei called the police about rumors circulating on the Internet that said a renovation project in Shuibei Village would turn the 600 villagers into multimillionaires overnight, the Guangzhou Daily reported.

    The WeChat post composed by the three employees claimed that each family in Shuibei Village would get a resettlement compensation of 200 million yuan (US$29.42 million) if they agreed to move out of the village to make way for the renovation project and the rumor spread widely on social media over the past few days.

    A forged photo showing a check issued by “Cuizhu Shuibei Joint Stock Co.,” an enterprise jointly owned by the villagers, also went viral online. The amount of the check, labeled “compensation money,” was above 198 million yuan.

    Many netizens reposted a joke on social media stating that there were 83 single female villagers and 38 single male villagers in Shuibei, implying that single villagers would become sought-after as they might get a large compensation.

    Luohu District’s publicity department posted a statement on its official Weibo account Tuesday night to refute the rumors, saying that all of the villagers in Shuibei chose to get new apartments or stores instead of cash compensation as the village is reconstructed.

    The statement noted that there are 178 buildings in the village, and villagers with apartments on the ground floor will get stores while those owning apartments on the second floor or above will get apartments of the same total area. Altogether, online posts about the 200-million-yuan check and 83 single women in Shuibei Village were rumors.

    According to related laws, those who spread rumors will be held responsible. (Zhang Yang, Zhang Qian)