Police in the eastern Anhui province have “warned” a man for impersonating the Chinese cyber-police on Twitter, according to an official statement Thursday.

Authorities said they had summoned the man, surnamed Wang, to a police station on Aug. 26 for creating a fake cybersecurity police account on Twitter — which is inaccessible to most in China — as well as for fabricating and distributing false information online. The statement added that the man was given “educational criticism” after he agreed to delete the account in question and report other fake accounts.

In 2013, China introduced rules allowing authorities to detain people for spreading false information online in the event that such posts are shared over 500 times or viewed more than 5,000 times. Last year, microblogging platform Weibo also announced features allowing authorities to flag rumors, while search engine Baidu added a “rumor” tag in 2017, supposedly to help identify fake news. (Image: VCG)