12 people in China arrested for spreading fake news about Xiaomi, Huawei electric vehicles

A total of 12 people were recently arrested in Shandong, China for allegedly being behind many online articles that negatively portrayed the electric vehicles from Xiaomi, Huawei, and Li Auto.

Since July 2025, these three Chinese companies have reported to the police about such articles circulating on an unnamed online platform, the public security bureau of Shandong's Yantai city said.

A special team in the bureau conducted a four-month investigation into the case, and reviewed over 3,000 of such articles.

Through raids in the cities of Yantai and Liaocheng, the police arrested 12 suspects, seized over RMB1 million (S$183,000) in funds, and shut down over 8,000 online accounts said to be engaged in illegal activities.

The bureau described the operation as achieving a thorough crackdown on a new type of "keyboard warrior" criminal organisation.

Defamatory content

According to the Yantai Public Security Bureau, the articles in question were designed to target the electric vehicles produced by Xiaomi, Huawei, and Li Auto.

Some articles apparently misrepresented facts and defamed the three companies intentionally, while some were fake consumer reviews.

There were also widely disseminated videos that sensationalised issues on the companies, which could cause serious damage to their reputation, and disrupt business operations.

An organised effort

The Yantai Public Security Bureau's investigations revealed that the suspects had planned and coordinated an operation to put out the content.

All the content originated from a group of accounts that were set up within a short period of time, and these accounts also had abnormal activity and IP addresses from all over the cities.

The bureau also found that the suspects used software to crawl the web for the keywords "Xiaomi", "Huawei", and "Li Auto", and used artificial intelligence (AI) to dump their content repeatedly on the online platform.

Their purpose was to generate views for the content and earn money through the platform, according to the bureau.

The bureau said it would continue cracking down on false information online, and would use the rule of law to protect emerging industries.

Top images from the Yantai Public Security Bureau