A female bodybuilder has been accused of spreading pornography online by Chinese web police after uploading a video of her showcasing her physique onto social media.
China-born, Australia-based Lara Zhang said the short clip was part of her weekly training arrangement with her coach as a way to report her progress remotely. But the Chinese web police deemed the footage ‘pornographic’ and ‘obscene’ before warning her of legal consequences for posting such content.
The video in question was shared by Lara Zhang last July on her account on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter. In the 23-second clip, a smiling Ms Zhang is seen displaying her ripped body while donning a green bikini. It shows her walking in a living room confidently as if she were competing on a stage.
In a post to accompany the video, Ms Zhang, who lives in Queensland, said the footage had been taken in June, 2017. She said it was a way for her to ‘check in’ with her coach who lived in Sydney. Her coach would watch the footage and decide her training schedule and diet structure for the following week.
Seven months later, her footage became trending again after the web police from the city of Maoming in China left a comment yesterday under Ms Zhang’s video, calling it ‘illegal’.
Police claimed Ms Zhang had broken the Public Security Administration Punishments Law in China and she ‘is using the internet to publish and spread pornographic and obscene information’.
The comment said Ms Zhang would be subject to legal punishment.