A viral sex video that set the Chinese internet alight this week struck a severe blow to the country’s “core socialist values”, Beijing’s online watchdog has said.
The one-minute film, which leaked on to social media on Tuesday night and has since been viewed by millions of people, shows a bespectacled man and a woman having sex in a Beijing branch of Japanese clothing giant Uniqlo.
The X-rated footage spread like wildfire on platforms such as WeChat and Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, leaving internet censors scrambling to keep up.
As the clip clocked up millions of views and Beijing’s displeasure became clear, the Japanese retailer was forced to react.
“We would like to remind the public to uphold social morality and use our fitting rooms in a correct and proper way,” Uniqlo said in a statement, denying online rumours that it had masterminded the video as a marketing stunt.
That intervention failed to spare executives at two of China’s top internet firms an official reprimand for allowing the pornographic film the oxygen of publicity.
“The vulgar video had spread like a virus online and clashed with socialist core values,” Xu Feng, a director at the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), was quoted as saying by the Global Times newspaper.
The government would “continue to crack down on vulgar materials online and safeguard the cyber environment,” Feng vowed. Beijing police are reportedly investigating who made the film and how it appeared on the internet.
In a statement, Beijing’s internet watchdog claimed Chinese “internet users are highly concerned and strongly condemn the acts”.
But the general reaction was one of delight not disgust. Commemorative t-shirts celebrating the Uniqlo encounter could be found on online shopping portals such as Taobao and Tmall.
Jokes spread on social media including a spoof photograph of a warning supposedly posted in a fitting room at Harrods, the upmarket London department store. “Dear customers!” the fake sign read. “The new rule is: each Chinese couple can only have 10 minutes using those fitting rooms which is fully enough … Sorry for any inconvenience that will cause.”
On Thursday morning dozens of young Chinese could be seen snapping selfies outside the Uniqlo outlet where the sex tape was shot.
Uniqlo Sanlitun has become selfie heaven! pic.twitter.com/10edFZfoVd
— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsin) July 16, 2015
Across the street, a Communist party propaganda poster outlined the “core socialist values” on which the video had trampled in bright red Chinese characters. “Patriotism, dedication, integrity, friendship,” it said.
Additional reporting by Luna Lin
